A jury member, on conditions of anonymity, speaks of how the award committee’s choice and opinion was made redundant to favour powerful lobby groups

National Award winning films were seldom watched by everyday cinegoers. They were branded as boring and avoided even if they did manage to get a theatrical release. The more soporific, better the chances of winning was the sly consensus. Only a few like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Girish Kasarvalli competed among themselves. Times have changed. Categories have increased and more importantly the viewership of such films has widened thanks to multiplexes. So have the reactions.

The National Film Awards these days mostly arouse reactions ranging from discontentment to accusations of lobbying, resulting in the undeserving emerging winners. You cannot please everyone but serious thought should go into the modus operandi when some of the selectors themselves feel frustrated and insulted that their recommendations are overlooked. Just like the censor board there are two males, two females and a chairman in the first round. Around five such groups watch films in various languages. There are two rounds. In the first, all the movies submitted are watched. After the filtration, the recommended films are watched by five chairmen and five others who then decide the winners. The jury members are provided airfare, five star accommodations, the best food and a generous allowance per day. They watch five films per day and note down points for and against.

This year there were 62 Kannada films, 15 in Telugu, two in Beary, and one Tulu. A jury member who came into contact with me, on condition of anonymity, said that around 40 Kannada films were literally unwatchable. Other members in the group chided him about the quality of Kannada films submitted and asked if this was the general standard. “I told them good films are not submitted because it’s become the norm to award films made by certain people thanks to lobbying. The quality of the award winners is so low that it encourages mediocre fare to be sent,” says the gentleman, who’s been on various juries before.

The jury wanted to nominate only the best and decided unanimously ‘Ammachi Yemba Nenapu’ deserved awards for Best Film, music, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor. It’s a film that’s won appreciation worldwide. “Radhakrishna Urala plays a woman and we couldn’t make out for a long time but lobbying was going on for ‘Mookajjiya Kanasugalu’ by P.Sheshadri,” the source reveals.

‘Nathicharami’ won awards in five categories which raised eyebrows and a disappointed filmmaker sued a jury member citing conflict of interest. “We nominated the film for either best story or screenplay only. We learnt hectic lobbying was on for ‘Nathicharami’ and were disappointed. ‘Aa Karala Rathri’ was not in the running because it’s inspired by a Rajasthani film, ‘Parinati’ based on a folk tale. Also the dialogues were vulgar.” Ironically, I had to point out to him that the censors had passed the film!

Now lobbying can be done only in the second round where the winners are decided. There is lesser number of people and influencing is easier. Strangely the chairman of the group that watched Kannada films who was basically from Manipur was pushing ‘Nathicharami’ against the wishes of the rest.

“We found that strange. He also told us the film we liked ‘Ammachi Yemba Nenapu’ did not find support. When the process got delayed because of elections we had a discussion over a conference call and realised that none of our recommendations were being receiving the awards. I asked why we were needed and even put up a caustic post on Facebook. We had not selected anything in the song or lyrics category because we didn’t find any worthy. We had nominated ‘KGF’ for best editing keeping in mind the amount of footage they’d shot, but ‘Nathicharami’ won. We nominated the actress in ‘Ammachi ’ for best actress and Shruthi walked away with the award. The plot in ‘Nathicharami’ is similar to the one in B-grade Malayalam films during the soft porn era there. Only the narration is polished. It’s very sad. We’re not against the film winning, but not at the cost of deserving films. After the awards were announced a lady jury member from Andhra called and wondered what the others saw that we missed in ‘Nathicharami’. Now this sort of lopsided favouritism happened only with Marathi and Kannada films and one man is responsible for all this,” says the disappointed jury member.

“Believe me the Government does not interfere. They provide us the best of comforts and only expect a fair selection in return. Sadly, that’s the casualty thanks to a few with vested interests.” It’s not been proved that money changes hands but the jury member cannot think of a better reason for such hectic lobbying.

“You see previously we had stars like Raj Kumar, Vishnuvardhan, Anant and Shankar Nag. Aspirants felt they had to have such looks and talent to even try. Now with the likes of ‘Loose’ Madha and Duniya Vijay becoming stars with a sizeable following all and sundry feel they have a chance. It’s the same with films competing for the National Awards,” says the jury member, with deep disappointment.

sshivu@yahoo.com