26th National Film Awards

The 26th National Film Awards, presented by Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of Indian Cinema released in the year 1978. Ceremony took place in April 1979.

Juries
Two different committees were formed for feature films and short films, headed by Chetan Anand and Kironmoy Raha respectively.


 * Jury Members: Feature Films
 * Chetan Anand (Chairperson) • Sanjukta Panigrahi • Arvind Kumar • Manohar Shyam Joshi • Hameeduddin Mehmood
 * Vinay Chandra Maudglaya • Bhisham Sahni • Jamuna • Vimla Patil • Satish Alekar • S. L. Bhyrappa • Naa Parthasarthy
 * Nirad N. Mohapatra • G. L. Bhardwaj • Basu Bhattacharya • K. K. Nair
 * Jury Members: Short Films
 * Kironmoy Raha (Chairperson) • Aruna Vasudev • M. T. Vasudevan Nair

Awards
Awards were divided into feature films and non-feature films.

Feature films
Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 26th National Film Awards, no film was awarded the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film. It is the only year for National Film Awards not to give away this award till now. A Hindi film Gaman, a Bengali film Parashuram and a Malayalam film Thampu won the maximum number of awards (three). Following were the awards given in each category:

All India Award
Following were the awards given:

Regional Award
The awards were given to the best films made in the regional languages of India. For feature films in Bengali, English, Hindi, Kashmiri, Meitei and Punjabi, award for Best Feature Film was not given.

Non-Feature films
Following were the awards given:

Awards not given
Following were the awards not given as no film was found to be suitable for the award:


 * Best Feature Film
 * Second Best Feature Film
 * Best Story
 * Best Film on Family Welfare
 * Best Lyrics
 * Best Film on Social Documentation
 * 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 Manipuri
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Marathi
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Oriya
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Punjabi
 * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Tamil