The winners at the 71st National Film Awards for movies and documentaries made in 2023 included Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail, Sudipto Sen’s The Kerala Story and Ramkumar Balakrishnan’s Parking. The awards, selected by a jury headed by Ashutosh Gowariker, were announced today in Delhi.
12th Fail won the Best Feature Film award across languages as well bagged its lead, Vikrant Massey, the best actor award. Massey shared the honour with Shah Rukh Khan for Atlee’s Jawan.
Sudipto Sen was named best director for The Kerala Story. The Hindi movie also won an award for cinematography for Prasantanu Mohapatra.
The Tamil-language Parking shared the Best Screenplay award for Ramkumar Balakrishna with Sai Rajesh Neelam for the Telugu movie Baby. Parking was also named the Best Tamil Film.
Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani won in the Best Feature Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment category. Meghna Gulzar’s Sam Bahadur was named Best Film Promoting National, Social Values. Sam Bahadur’s make-up designer Shrikant Desai and costume designers Sachin Lovalekar, Divvya and Nidhiii Gambhir also won awards.
Rani Mukerji won the Best Actress prize for Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway. Urvashi for Ullozhukku and Janki Bodiwala for Vash shared the supporting actress award. Christo Tomy’s Ullozhukku and Krishnadev Yagnik’s Vash were named the best films in Malayalam and Gujarati respectively.
The Best Supporting Actor award was split between Mutthupettai Somu Bhaskar for Parking and Vijayaraghavan for Pookkaalam. The Best Child Artist award went to Sukriti Veni Bandreddi for Gandhi Tatha Chettu, Kabir Khandare for Gypsy and Treesha Thosar for Naal 2.
Here are the winners of the rest of the awards:
Best Editing: Midhun Murali for Pookkaalam (Malayalam).
Best Sound Design: Sachin Sudhakaran and Hariharan Muralidharan for Animal (Hindi).
Best Production Design: Mohandas for 2018 (Malayalam).
Best Action Direction: Nandu and Prudhvi for Hanu-Man (Telugu).
Best Music Direction for Songs: GV Prakash Kumar, Vaathi (Tamil.
Best Music Direction for Background Scores: Harshavardhan Rameshwar for Animal (Hindi).
Best Lyrics: Kasarla Shyam for Balagam (Telugu).
Best Male Playback Singer: PVNS Rohit for Premisthunna from Baby (Telugu).
Best Female Playback Singer: Shilpa Rao for Chhaliya from Jawan (Hindi).
Best Choreography: Vaibhavi Merchant for Dhindhora Baje from Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani (Hindi).
Best Assamese Film: Adityam Saikia’s Rongatapu 1982.
Best Bengali Film: Arjun Dutta’s Deep Fridge.
Best Hindi Film: Yashowardhan Mishra’s Kathal.
Best Kannada Film: K Yashoda Prakash’s Kandeelu – The Ray of Hope.
Best Marathi Film: Sujay Dahake’s Shyamchi Aai.
Best Odia Film: Subhransu’s Pushkara.
Best Punjabi Film: Vijay Kumar Arora’s Godday Godday Chaa.
Best Tai Phake Film: Prabal Khaund’s Pai Tang… Step of Hope.
Best Garo Film: Dominic Sangma’s Rapture.
Best Telugu Film: Anil Ravipudi’s Bhagavanth Kesari.
Non-feature Categories
Best Non-Fiction Film: Soumyajit Ghosh Dastidar’s Flowering Man.
Best Debut Film of a Director: Shilpika Bordoloi’s Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw.
Best Biographical/Historical Reconstruction Film: Mo Bou Mo Gaan, Lentina Ao.
Best Art/Culture Film: Timeless Tamil Nadu.
Best Documentary Film: Rishiraj Agarwal’s God Vulture and Human.
Best Non-Feature Film Promoting Social and Environmental Values: Akshat Gupta’s The Silent Epidemic.
Best Short Film: Manish Saini’s Giddh The Scavenger.
Best Direction: Piyush Thakur’s The First Film.
Best Cinematography: Meenakshi Soman and Saravanamaruthu Soundarapandi for Little Wings.
Best Sound Design: Shubarun Sengupta for Dhundhgiri Ke Phool.
Best Editing: Niladri Roy for Moving Focus.
Best Music Direction: Pranil Desai for The First Film.
Best Voiceover: Hari Krishnan S for The Sacred Jack – Exploring The Tree of Wishes.
Best Script: Chidananda S Naik for Sunflowers Were The First Ones To Know.
Special mentions: Nekal – Chronicle of the Paddy Man, The Sea and the Seven Villages.
Best Film Critic: Utpal Datta.
