39th National Film Awards

The 39th 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 1991. Ceremony took place in 1992.

With 39th National Film Awards, two new awards were introduced for feature films section. These awards includes National Film Award for Best Special Effects and National Film Award for Best Choreography and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). These two newly introduced awards were not given for 39th National Film Awards as no film/entry was found to be suitable.

Also for Best Writing on Cinema, Best Film Critic is awarded with Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus), which was till then awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus).

Awards
Awards were divided into feature films, non-feature films and books written on Indian cinema.

Feature films
Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 39th National Film Awards, a Bengali film, Agantuk won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film also winning the maximum number of awards (3) along with a Malayalam film, Bharatham and a Hindi film, Dharavi. Following were the awards given in each category:

Juries
A committee headed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan was appointed to evaluate the feature films awards. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Adoor Gopalakrishnan (Chairperson) • Aamir Raza Husain • Ashish Saraf • Firooze Rangoonwala • Gummadi • Hema Chaudhary • R. Lakshman • Lalitha Ravee • Nabyendu Chatterjee • Nityananda Samntaray • P. Madhavan • Prafulla Saikia • P. R. S. Pillay • Raja Mitra • Sreekumaran Thampi • Urvashi Talwar • Vinod Nagpal

All India Award
Following were the awards given:

Golden Lotus Award
Official Name: Swarna Kamal

All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.

Silver Lotus Award
Official Name: Rajat Kamal

All the awardees are awarded with 'Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.

Regional Awards
The award is given to best film in the regional languages in India.

Non-Feature Films
Short Films made in any Indian language and certified by the Central Board of Film Certification as a documentary/newsreel/fiction are eligible for non-feature film section.

Juries
A committee headed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta was appointed to evaluate the non-feature films awards. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Buddhadeb Dasgupta (Chairperson) • Arun Kaul • Jag Mohan • Jehangir Chaudhary • Vijaya Mulay

Golden Lotus Award
Official Name: Swarna Kamal

All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.

Silver Lotus Award
Official Name: Rajat Kamal

All the awardees are awarded with 'Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)' and cash prize.

Best Writing on Cinema
The awards aim at encouraging study and appreciation of cinema as an art form and dissemination of information and critical appreciation of this art-form through publication of books, articles, reviews etc.

Juries
A committee headed by Kamleshwar was appointed to evaluate the writing on Indian cinema. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Kamleshwar (Chairperson) • Shanta Sarbjeet Singh • Vijay Sasnur

Golden Lotus Award
Official Name: Swarna Kamal

All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)' and cash prize.

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


 * Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment
 * Best Film on Environment Conservation/Preservation
 * Best Feature Film in Manipuri
 * Best Feature Film in Marathi
 * Best Feature Film in Punjabi
 * Best Feature Film in English
 * Best Non-Feature Film Direction
 * Best Exploration / Adventure Film