After nearly two years of controversies the 53rd National Film Awards were declared on Tuesday.The prestigious awards ran into controversy last year when Kolkata-based film critic Shyamli Banerjee filed a petition in the Delhi High Court levelling charges of corruption and fixing in deciding the 53rd National Film Awards.
The Annual National Film Awards, initiated by the Directorate of Film Festivals in India to recognise films of merit produced or co-produced in the previous year in the country, and their technicians on and off the screen.
“Kaalpurush”, the Bengali film directed by Budhadeb Dasgupta, has been declared the Best Feature Film whereas the Bollywood movie ‘Rang De Basanti’ (Hindi), directed by Rakesh Omprakash Mehra has been declared as the Best popular film. The award for the Best Direction went to Rahul Dholakia for the film ‘Parzania’.
Other Awards are :
Best Actor Award – Amitabh Bachchan (Black)
Best Actress Award – Sarika (Parzania)
Best Male Playback Singer – Naresh Iyer (Rang De Basanti)
Best Female Playback singer – Shreya Ghoshal (Paheli)
The Best Feaure Film in different languagues are :
| Language | Film | Director |
| Hindi | Black | Sanjay Leela Bhansali |
| Assamese | Kadam Tole Krishna Nache | Suman Haripriya |
| Bengali | Harbart | Suman Mukherjee |
| Kannada | Thaayi | Baraguru Ramchandrappa |
| Malayalam | Thanmatra | Blessy |
| Marathi | Dombivali Fast | Nishikant Kamat |
| Oriya | Kathantara | Himanshu Khatua |
| Punjabi | Baghi | Sukhminder Dhanjal |
| Tamil | Aadum Kothu | T V Chandran |
| Telugu | Bommalata | Prakash Kovelamudi |
