New Delhi .The National Film Awards is the premier national honor honoring outstanding films, artists and technical talent in Indian cinema. It started 72 years ago. The awards were given for the first time in the year 1954 and at that time its official form was quite different from today. Initially it was not known as National Film Award, but as State Award for Film.
The foundation of these awards was laid after the recommendations of the Film Inquiry Committee formed in 1949. The committee studied the state of the Indian film industry, the quality of films and their socio-cultural impact. After this process, the government decided to start awards at the government level to encourage films.
The first awards were given for films released in the year 1953. At that time, the President of the country was Dr. Rajendra Prasad and the Minister of Information and Broadcasting was BV Keskar. Initially, mainly feature films, documentaries and children's films were considered for the awards.
An important feature of the National Film Awards since its inception has been to honor films from different Indian languages. These awards were not limited to Hindi films only. Films from Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Assamese and other languages also got a place in it with time. This gave recognition to the country's diverse cinema at the national level.
The first National Film Awards ceremony was held on 10 October 1954 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The gold medal for Best Feature Film went to Marathi film Shyamchi Aayi. The Best Documentary Film award was given to Mahabalipuram. Hindi film Do Bigha Zameen and Bengali film Lord Krishna Chaitanya received All India Certificate of Merit.
In the early years there were no separate awards for actors and actresses. Separate awards for artists and technicians began with films of 1967 and winners were honored in 1968. Uttam Kumar became the first Best Actor, while Nargis Dutt became the first Best Actress. At that time these awards were known as Bharat Award and Urvashi Award.
The scope of National Film Awards continuously increased with time. Technical categories such as cinematography, editing, music, playback singing, screenplay, costume, make-up, sound, choreography, stunts and VFX were also included. Dadasaheb Phalke Award started in 1969 and Devika Rani became its first recipient.
From 1973 the Directorate of Film Festivals took over the administration of the awards. It was merged into the National Film Development Corporation as part of a government restructuring in 2022. The 70th National Film Awards also saw restructuring of several categories and changes in the prize money.
The winners of the awards are selected by a jury constituted as per the prescribed procedure. Separate juries are formed for writing on feature, non-feature and cinema. The selection of feature films first involves screening and shortlisting at the regional level, after which a national jury selects the final winners.
Talking about records, Shabana Azmi has won the National Award for Best Actress five times. He received honors for Ankur, Arth, Khandaar, Paar and Godmother. Amitabh Bachchan has four awards in the Best Actor category, while Mammootty won his fourth National Award for Brahmayugam.
K in playback singing. J. Yesudas has eight national awards to his name. Musician A. R. Rahman has received seven National Film Awards. Whereas great filmmaker Satyajit Ray has a total of 36 National Film Awards in his name. These include six Best Director and 30 Best Feature Film awards.
This year, the 72nd National Film Awards ceremony is being organized on 22nd September in Kevadiya i.e. Ekta Nagar, Gujarat. This is the first time that the National Film Awards ceremony is being held outside Delhi and President Draupadi Murmu will felicitate the winners.