18 National Awards for southern films

The cat’s got the cream you might say, but having drawn a blank in 2009, Tollywood has redeemed itself in 2010 by bagging two National Awards including Best Choreographer (Shivashankar) and Best Special Effects (Kamal Kannan) for “Magadheera”.
I am very happy for our visual effects team as well as our choreographer. They deserved it for making our film a visual treat. I am happy to be associated with such a great project,” says Ram Charan Tej.
It’s also true however, that two generations of T-town stars from NTR, ANR, Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna to Nagarjuna and Venkatesh haven’t yet managed to bag the Best Actor (Male) National Award and three generations of producers and directors are still vying for the elusive Best Film and Best Director Awards. “Perhaps, we need to pen more realistic thems and characters to impress the national jury,” says filmmaker Neelakanta, who bagged two National Awards. Is it also because T-town leans towards commercial films than off-beat ones? “In mainstream cinema, you can’t overlook the commercial essence. We should make films like “3 Idiots” which has the right mix of unique plot and commercial elements. However, refreshing ideas are seeping into T-town and we might break the barrier,” he adds.
However, new-age Tamil actor and filmmaker Sasi Kumar has a different view of commercial cinema as he dedicates three awards (two for child artistes and one each for best Tamil regional film and best dialogues) for his production “Pasanga” to theTamil audience. “ I would like to thank the film audience for supporting innovative themes. I laud my director Pandiraj and two kids who deservedly bagged the awards. I am very happy because it was a commercial hit and has now bagged coveted awards,” he says. Malayalam filmmaker P V Gangadharan, who’s also the vice-president of Federation of International Films, feels that Mammotty and Hariharan deserved Best Actor and Director awards. “They should have bagged those awards for their work. Nevertheless, Malayalam film industry got 13 awards. So, we are happy,” he says.
It seems that although not without some rumbling, the South Indian film frat sounds happy with their haul at the National Awards this year.