Hemanth Rao, the Kannada director who made Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu in 2016, has won this year's Gollapudi Srinivas National Award for Best Debut Film. The film was selected from 20 nominations from across the country in many languages including Malayalam, Manipuri, Tamil, Assamese and Bengali. The jury consisted of veteran director Rajendra Singh Babu, actors Poornima Bhagyaraj and 'Kavithalya' Krishnan.
Rao will receive a cash prize of rupees one lakh fifty thousand along with a memento during the annual ceremony held at the Music Academy in Chennai on August 12. The award was instituted by a trust in 1998 in memory of the director Gollapudi Srinivas who died while filming his first film, Prema Pustakam .Previous winners of the award include Aamir Khan ( Taare Zameen Par ), Paresh Mokashi ( Harischandrachi Factory ), Anusha Rizvi ( Peepli Live ) and Ram Madhvani (Let's Talk ).
Rao's win is significant as it is the first one to be awarded to a Kannada director. Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu (which literally translates to 'wheatish complexion, average build') stars Anant Nag and Rakshit Shetty, and revolves around a missing Alzheimer's patient.
Read our review of the film here
Read our interview with director Hemanth Rao here
