New Delhi, December 29
Evergreen hero Dev Anand was clearly the star of the evening. As he walked up the podium at the Vigyan Bhavan today to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke award from President A.P.J.Kalam, an enthusiastic audience got up to honour him with a standing ovation.
Dev Anand is the 33rd recipient of the nation’s highest honour in cinema for which he received a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh, a shawl and a swarna kamal. This award was instituted in 1969 in the name of D.G.Phalke who is recognised as the father of Indian cinema, having produced the first indigenously produced film, “Raja Harishchandra” in 1913.
While Dev Anand stole the show at the 50th national film awards ceremony, there were a host of younger winners also competing for attention from the audience. Among those who were the cynosure of all eyes included Ajay
Devgun, who won the best actor award for his role in the “The Legend of Bhagat Singh,” and Konkana Sen, the winner of the best actress award for her performance in “Mr. and Mrs. Iyer.” The film also won the best director’s award for Aparna Sen and the Nargis Dutt award for national integration.
Actress Raakhee was feted as the best supporting actress for her role in “Shubho Mahurat.”
The Hindi blockbuster of 2002 “Devdas” with five awards and Bengali films dominated the evening. The best film award went to Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s “Mondo Meyer Upakhyan” on the best film award while the Indira Gandhi national award for the first film was shared by Abhijit Chaudhari and Subhadro Chaudhary for Bengali films “Patal Ghar” and “Prohor”, respectively.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Devdas” was adjudged the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment, also winning playback singer Shreya Ghoshal an award for the song “Dola re dola.” It also won awards for best choreography (Saroj Khan), art direction (Nitin Chandrakant Desai) and costume design (Neeta Lulla. Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla).
