18th National Film Awards

The 18th National Film Awards were held in Chennai, India in November 1971 by the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for Indian films released in 1970. The awards were presented by then President of India, V. V. Giri.

Juries
The award winners were chosen by four juries, one each for the Bombay, Calcutta and Madras regions and a central jury for all India. For the 18th National Film Awards the central jury was headed by Justice G. D. Khosla.


 * Jury Members: Central
 * G. D. Khosla (Chair) • Shiela Vats • Teji Bachchan • V. K. Narayana Menon • Ashis Burman • Ali Sardar Jafri • Ammu Swaminathan • Din Dayal • Nasir Hussain • U. Visweswar Rao • Subodh Mitra
 * Regional Jury: Bombay
 * Vijay Tendulkar (Chair) • Firoze Rangoonwalla • Bikram Singh • K. K. Hebbar • Irene Heredia • Ismat Chughtai • L. G. Jog • Gopinath Talwalkar • Devendra Goel • Shatrujit Paul • Bhappi Sonie
 * Regional Jury: Calcutta
 * Amala Shankar (Chair) • Amina Kar • Anant Mahapatra • A. K. Pramanick • Tarun Roy • Pankaj Mullick • Rajendra Nath Barua • Shibatosh Mukerjee • Narayan Chakraborty • Dilip Sarkar • Nirmal Chowdhury
 * Regional Jury: Madras
 * C. R. Pattabhiraman (Chair) • K. Venkataswamy Naidu • P. P. Naidu • Mallikarjuna Rao • Shakuntala Hegde • D. Ramanaidu • Vijayalakshmi • V. C. Subburaman • Kambisseri Karunakaran • C. N. Ramanujam • T. S. Muthuswamy • K. Kottarakkara

Awards
Awards were given to feature films and non-feature films.

The top national award in each category was the President's Gold Medal and, at the regional level, the President's Silver Medal.

Feature films
The Kannada film Samskara won the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film. Three award each went to the Hindi films, Dastak and Mera Naam Joker, and to the Bengali film Pratidwandi.

All India Award
Award recipients:

Regional Award
The awards were given to the best films made in the regional languages of India. For feature films in Assamese, English, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Oriya and Punjabi language, the resident's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film was not given. The producer and director of the film were awarded with ₹5,000 and a Silver medal, respectively.

Non-Feature films
The award recipients were:

Awards not given
The following awards not given:


 * Best Story Writer
 * Best Film on Family Welfare
 * Best Children's Film
 * Lyric Writer of the Best Film Song on National Integration
 * Best Information Film (Documentary)
 * Best Educational / Instructional Film
 * Best Promotional Film
 * Best Experimental Film
 * Best Animation Film
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Assamese
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in English
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Oriya
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Punjabi