- Monday, March 10, 2025
The 79-year-old actor said working on the family drama in Delhi during Covid-19 brought everyone together and the cast members continue to be friends
By: India Weekly
A NATIONAL Film Award after the immense audience love for “Gulmohar” is like the proverbial icing on the cake, veteran actor Sharmila Tagore said on Friday.
The Rahul V Chittella-directed film, about a family getting ready to say goodbye to their ancestral home, has bagged the awards for best Hindi film and for best dialogue writing for Chittella.
Manoj Bajpayee also received a special mention for the film in which he plays Tagore’s eldest son.
The team behind “Gulmohar”, which was released on Disney+Hotstar in 2023, must get together to celebrate the win, Tagore said.
“After Tiger (husband Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi) passed away, there was so much to do but there was no time. This film (‘Gulmohar’) received a lot of love from the audience and got so many awards from so many platforms that it has been a wonderful journey. Now this National Award is the icing on the cake. I feel over the moon,” Tagore told PTI.
The 79-year-old said working on the family drama in Delhi during Covid-19 brought everyone together and the cast members continue to be friends.
“Every member, even the crew members are calling me. There’s so much friendship amongst us that everybody is happy for each other. Like, Manoj is happy for me, I’m happy for Manoj… We did our best to make the film, and it became everybody’s film and everybody has appreciated it,” she said.
The actor said Chittella was about to call her when she rang him up and congratulated him. She also reached out to Bajpayee and other cast members.
“We’ve told Rahul that he has to organise something so that all of us can meet and enjoy ourselves. That’s something that I’ll keep at it till we do it. We must (celebrate),” the veteran star said.
After “Gulmohar”, Tagore worked in the Bengali film “Puratawn”, which she said will release by the end of January.
Tagore, who has an enormous body of work behind her, said she wishes to work till the very end but the roles have to justify her presence.
“If things work out and if there’s a good scrip, of course, I will work (more) But it has to suit me and these things cannot be planned. Sometimes a good script comes along and that’s how ‘Gulmohar’ and ‘Puratawn’ happened. Let’s hope something like that comes and certainly, I want to work till my dying day. But the script has to be good, especially after ‘Gulmohar’.”
Regional films dominate
Regional cinema dominated the National Film Awards announced on Friday with best feature film going to Malayalam movie “Aattam: The Play” and Rishabh Shetty bagging best actor for the Kannada hit “Kantara”.
The best actress prize was shared by Nithya Menen, for the Tamil film “Thiruchitrambalam”, and Manasi Parekh for the Gujarati movie “Kutch Express”.
“Aattam: The Play”, directed by Anand Ekarshi, revolves around a theatre troupe and the changing dynamics after its only woman member alleges she has been groped by one of the men.
To win three National Awards for his maiden film as a director was “incredibly motivating”, said Ekarshi who also won the best screenplay trophy.
“It is extremely motivating and I’m thrilled. People were saying that National awards are going to be announced and something should happen… This is incredibly amazing. Everyone is on cloud nine,” he told PTI.
The lone Bollywood presence in the top categories for the 70th edition of the national awards was “Uunchai” with Sooraj R Barjatya named best director.
The adventure film, centred on four aging friends readying to scale Mt Everest, also won Neena Gupta a best supporting actress prize.
The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani and Danny Denzongpa and was released in November 2022
Barjatya expressed his deep gratitude and said his journey in cinema is far from over and there are many more stories to be told.
“I’m humbled to be honoured amongst the best that the country has seen in cinema during 2022. It takes me back 30 years when ‘Hum Aapke Hain Koun’ won the National Award for best film. The rush and happiness that I felt as a young director then was crazy!”
Neena Gupta told PTI, “It is yet to sink in. I’ve got two National Awards in the past and I’m getting another National award after many many years, it’s a big thing for me.” Gupta had earlier bagged awards for the non-feature “Bazar Sitaram” in 1993 and for “Woh Chokri” in 1994.
A big winner in the awards for 2022 was the Haryanvi film “Fouja”, which got Pavan Malhotra a best supporting actor and won two other awards — best debut film of a director for Pramod Kumar and best lyrics to Naushad Sadar Khan.
The awards were announced by Rahul Rawail, head of the jury for the feature film segment, and Nila Madhab Panda, who headed the non-feature film category. (PTI)
