45th National Film Awards

The 45th 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 1997. The awards were announced on 8 May 1998 and presented on 10 July 1998 by then President of India, K. R. Narayanan.

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 National Film Awards, a Kannada film, Thaayi Saheba won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film also winning the maximum number of awards (4). Following were the awards given in each category:

Juries
A committee headed by B. Saroja Devi was appointed to evaluate the feature films awards. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * B. Saroja Devi (Chairperson) • P. Madhavan • Maheep Singh • C. V. L. Sastry • Aruna Purohit • Uma da Cunha • Devender Khandelwal • Sandip Ray • Santwana Bordoloi • Arundathi Nag • Pushpa Bharati • K. R. Mohanan • V. Madhusudhana Rao

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 K. K. Kapil was appointed to evaluate the non-feature films awards. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * K. K. Kapil (Chairperson) • Dinkar Chowdhary • Shashi Ranjan • Parvathi Menon • Namita Gokhale

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 Chidananda Dasgupta was appointed to evaluate the writing on Indian cinema. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Chidananda Dasgupta (Chairperson) • Tarun Vijay • Chandan Mitra

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 Special Effects
 * Best Feature Film in Assamese
 * Best Feature Film in English
 * Best Feature Film in Manipuri
 * Best Feature Film in Marathi
 * Best Non-Feature Film Music Direction