50th National Film Awards

The 50th 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 2002.

Awards were announced by the committee headed by Prakash Jha, Rajiv Mehrotra and Udaya Tara Nayar for the feature films, non-feature films and books written on Indian cinema, respectively, on 26 July 2003; whereas the award ceremony took place on 29 December 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 50th National Film Awards, a Bengali film, Mondo Meyer Upakhyan won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film; whereas a Tamil film, Kannathil Muthamittal won the maximum number of awards (6). Following were the awards given in each category:

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


 * Jury Members
 * Prakash Jha (Chairperson) • Amitabh Parashar • Arun Kaul • Biju Viswanath • Biplab Roy Chowdhary • Dinyar Contractor
 * Gautam Kaul • K. S. L. Swamy • Kiran Ghai • Alex Mathew • Manoj Tiwari • Mrinal Kanti Das • Mukesh Khanna
 * Nasir Mahmood Quraishi • Nirad N. Mohapatra • Shyamaprasad • Rauf Ahmed • S. Theodore Baskaran
 * Saibal Chattopadhyay • Sreelekha Mukherji • Swapan Mallick • Zoobi Amir

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


 * Jury Members
 * Rajiv Mehrotra (Chairperson) • Apurba Sharma • Kanan Krishnamurthy • Satya Narayan • Satya Prakash 'Aseem'

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 Udaya Tara Nayar was appointed to evaluate the writing on Indian cinema. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Udaya Tara Nayar (Chairperson) • Om Thanvi • Rashmi Doraiswamy

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 Film on Family Welfare
 * Best Film on Environment / Conservation / Preservation
 * Best Feature Film in Manipuri
 * Best Feature Film in Oriya
 * Best Feature Film in Punjabi
 * Best Feature Film in Telugu
 * Best Scientific Film
 * Best Agricultural Film
 * Best Historical Reconstruction / Compilation Film
 * Best Educational / Motivational / Instructional Film
 * Best Exploration / Adventure Film
 * Best Investigative Film
 * Best Animation Film
 * Best Non-Feature Film Cinematography
 * Best Non-Feature Film Audiography