Malayalam film Aattam, directed by Anand Ekarshi, won the Best Film, Best Editing and Best Screenplay awards.
| Photo Credit: SWAROOP KUMAR
The National Film Awards for 2022, announced on Friday, was dominated by regional movies, with Aattam: The Play in Malayalam being adjudged the Best Feature Film. Rishab Shetty won the Best Actor award for his role in Kantara (Kannada), and Nithya Menen and Manasi Parekh shared the Best Actress award for Thiruchitrambalam (Tamil) and Kutch Express (Gujarati).
Aattam was also declared the best in the editing (Mahesh Bhuvanend) category and for screenplay (Anand Ekarshi) jointly with Hindi film Gulmohar (Arpita Mukherjee and Rahul V. Chittella); Kantara also won the award for the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment; and the Best Choreography award went to Jani Master and Sathish Krishnan for their work in Thiruchitrambalam.
Gulmohar got the best Hindi film award as well, while Niki Joshi won the Best Costume Designer award for Kutch Express.
Best Director
The award for Best Direction went to Sooraj R. Barjatya for Uunchai: Zenith (Hindi). Pavan Raj Malhotra won the Best Supporting Actor award for Fouja (Haryanvi) and Neena Gupta won the Best Supporting Actress award for Uunchai: Zenith in the feature films category. Fouja was also adjudged the best in the debut film category.
The Best Production Design award went to Ananda Addhya for Aparajito: The Undefeated (Bengali), which also got the award for best make-up (Somnath Kundu). The Best Lyrics award went to Naushad Sadar Khan for his work in Fouja.
PS-1 gets multiple awards
A.R. Rahman won the award for Best Music Director (background music) for Mani Ratnam’s Ponnyin Selvan-Part 1 (Tamil), which was also selected as the best Tamil film and won awards for the Best Cinematography (Ravi Varman) and the Best Sound Design (Anand Krishnamoorthi). Pritam won the Best Music Director (songs) award and Arijit Singh was adjudged the Best Male Playback Singer for the song, “Kesariya”, both for Brahmastra-Part 1: Shiva. The Best Female Playback Singer award went to Padma Shri awardee Bombay Jayashri for “Chaayum Veyil”, a song in Saudi Vellaka CC 225/2009, which also won the award for the best Malayalam film.
Directed by Ayan Mukerji with VFX supervisors Jaykar Arudra, Viral Thakkar, and Neelesh Gore, Brahmastra-Part 1: Shiva has been adjudged the best film in the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming & Comic category.
Anbumani and Arivumani — jointly known as Anbariv — won the award for Best Action Direction (stunt choreography). Sreepath got the Best Child Artist award for Malikapurram (Malayalam). Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj won the Best Music Director award for his short film Fursat. The Best Film Critic award went to Deepak Dua.
Ayena: Mirror (Hindu/Urdu) bagged the award for Best Non-Feature Film and Murmurs Of The Jungle (Marathi) won the award for Best Documentary. The award for Best Book on Cinema has been given to Kishore Kumar: The Ultimate Biography by Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Parthiv Dhar.
