57th National Film Awards

The 57th 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 2009.

Three different committees were instituted in order to judge the various entries for feature film, non-feature film and best writing on cinema sections; headed by National award winner director, Ramesh Sippy, for feature films and Mike Pandey along with Samik Bandyopadhyay for non-feature films and best writing on cinema sections, respectively. Another committee of five members was also constituted for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.

Each chairperson for feature film, non-feature film and best writing on cinema sections announced the award on 15 September 2010 for their respective sections and award ceremony took place at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi with President of India, Pratibha Patil giving away the awards on 22 October 2010.

Dadasaheb Phalke award for D. Ramanaidu was announced prior to the announcement of 57th National Film Awards on 9 September 2010.

With 57th National Film Awards, for feature film section, National Film Award for Best Screenplay, Best Audiography and Best Music Direction have been split into multiple awards to felicitate different aspect of the techniques. Best Screenplay would now cover Original and Adapted Screenplay along with Dialogues. National Film Award for Best Audiography have been sub-categorized into Location sound recordist, Sound designer and Re-recordist of the final mixed track; whereas Best Music Direction will be given for Songs and Background score, separately. All the awardee will be awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus).

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

Lifetime Achievement Award
Lifetime achievement award is given to the prominent personality from the Indian film industry for the significant contributions given.

Juries
A committee consisting five eminent personalities from Indian film industry was appointed to evaluate the lifetime achievement award, Dadasaheb Phalke Award. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Yash Chopra • Akkineni Nageswara Rao • Javed Akhtar • Jagjit Singh • Asha Parekh

Feature films
Films made in any Indian language shot on 16 mm, 35 mm or in a wider gauge or digital format but released on a film format or video/digital but certified by the Central Board of Film Certification as a feature film or featurette are eligible for Feature Film section.

A total of 20 films were awarded in this category at the National Awards. Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 57th National Film Awards, a Malayalam film, Kutty Srank won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film also winning the maximum number of awards (5). Following were the awards given in each category:

Juries
A committee headed by Ramesh Sippy was appointed to evaluate the feature films awards. The selection process returned to a Two Tier System of Selection. The Chairperson for the Northern Region was Sushma Seth, for the Western Region, M. S. Sathyu, for South–I Region, T. S. Nagabharana, for the Eastern Region, B. Lenin and for South- II Region, Pinaki Chaudhari. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Ramesh Sippy (Chairperson) • M. S. Sathyu • T. S. Nagabharana • Pinaki Chaudhuri • B. Lenin
 * Sushma Seth • Bhanu Athaiya • Maithili Rao • Hari Kumar • Feroz Abbas Khan • Sarosh Italiaa
 * Jury Regional : North
 * Sushma Seth • Birendra Nath Tiwari • Rama Vij • Saryu V. Doshi • Apurwa Yagnik
 * Jury Regional : West
 * M. S. Sathyu • Ramdas Phutane • Ranjeet • Kuldip Sud • Fowzia Fathima
 * Jury Regional : South-I (Tamil and Malayalam)
 * T. S. Nagabharana • Agathiyan • R. Sarath • Sanjeev Sivan • Prem Sagar
 * Jury Regional : South-II (Kannada and Telugu)
 * Pinaki Chaudhuri • Chandrasiddarth • V. N. Laxminarayana • Suresh Krishna • Prabodh Parikh
 * Jury Regional : East
 * B. Lenin • Makhonmani Mongsaba • Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury • Vidya Rao Nair • Jeroo Mulla

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
Films made in any Indian language shot on 16 mm, 35 mm or in a wider gauge or digital format and released on either film format or video/digital but certified by the Central Board of Film Certification as a documentary/newsreel/fiction are eligible for non-feature film section.

A total of 11 films were awarded in the non-feature film category at the 57th National Film Awards. Gaarud and In Camera, both received the maximum number of awards, two.

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


 * Jury Members
 * Mike Pandey (Chairperson) • M. R. Rajan • Joy Bimal Roy • Vibhu Puri • Rajesh Jala • Bani Prakash Das • Maya Jaideep

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 Samik Bandyopadhyay was appointed to evaluate the writing on Indian cinema. Following were the jury members:


 * Jury Members
 * Samik Bandyopadhyay (Chairperson) • R. K. Bidur Singh • Sharad Dutt

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 Animated Film
 * Best Film on Family Welfare
 * Best Film on Environment / Conservation / Preservation
 * Best Feature Film in Manipuri (Meitei)
 * Best Feature Film in Oriya
 * Best Feature Film in Punjabi
 * Best Feature Film in Telugu
 * Best Feature Film in English
 * Best Non-Feature Film Direction
 * Best Anthropological / Ethnographic Film
 * Best Arts / Cultural Film
 * Best Scientific Film
 * Best Promotional Film
 * Best Educational / Motivational / Instructional Film
 * Best Exploration / Adventure Film
 * Best Investigative Film
 * Best Animation Film
 * Best Non-feature Film on Family Welfare
 * Best Music Direction