49th National Film Awards

The 49th 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 2001. Awards were announced by the committee headed by K. S. Sethumadhavan, K. K. Kapil and Bharat Gopy for the feature films, non-feature films and books written on Indian cinema, respectively, on 26 July 2002; whereas award ceremony took place on 13 February 2003 and awards were given away by then President of India, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

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 49th National Film Awards, a Kannada film, Dweepa won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film; whereas a Hindi film, Lagaan won the maximum number of awards (8). Following were the awards given in each category:

Juries
A committee headed by K. S. Sethumadhavan was appointed to evaluate the feature films awards. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * K. S. Sethumadhavan (Chairperson) • S. Ali Raza • Arun Kaul • Aruna Harprasad • Chitra Lakshmanan • Chitra Mudgal • Hemen Das
 * J. L. Ralhan • K. C. N. Chandrasekar • Ibohal Sharma • K. Sampath • K. S. Rama Rao • Meera Dewan • Nabyendu Chatterjee
 * Pallavi Joshi • Pradip Biswas • Prakash Dubey • Rajeevnath • Ramesh Desai • Sanjay Surkar • Sanjeev Hazarika

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.

Best Feature Film in Each of the Language Other Than Those Specified in the Schedule VIII of the Constitution

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 • K. Sudhakar Rao • Naresh Bedi • Shalini Shah

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 Bharat Gopy was appointed to evaluate the writing on Indian cinema. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Bharat Gopy (Chairperson) • Ratnottama Sengupta • Savita Bhakhry

Golden Lotus Award
Official name: Swarna Kamal

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

Special Mention
All the award winners are awarded with Certificate of Merit.

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


 * Best Children's Film
 * Best Film on Family Welfare
 * Best Film on Environment / Conservation / Preservation
 * Best Feature Film in Assamese
 * Best Feature Film in Manipuri
 * Best Feature Film in Marathi
 * Best Feature Film in Punjabi
 * Best Arts / Cultural Film
 * Best Scientific Film
 * Best Agricultural Film
 * Best Historical Reconstruction / Compilation Film
 * Best Exploration / Adventure Film