Sunday witnessed an unusual gathering of film critics and members of the Hindi film industry under one roof. Making a surprise appearance, actor Shah Rukh Khan seized the opportunity to take jibes at film reviewers gathered at Bandra’s Rangmandir to present the first edition of Critics’ Choice Awards, organised by the newly formed, Film Critics Guild.
Mr. Khan, who had just returned from China, mocked the rating system famously used by the critics to evaluate a movie, and said, “It’s a film, not a hotel for god’s sake!” He concluded his 10-minute speech by rating the award ceremony one-and-a-half stars.
Films from eight languages were felicitated, with Andhadhun emerging as the biggest winner in Hindi cinema. Sriram Raghavan’s thriller won Best Film, Best Director, Best Editor and Best Writing awards. Alia Bhatt received the Best Actor (Female) for Raazi and Vineet Kumar Singh bagged the Best Actor (Male) for Mukkabaaz . Surekha Sikri was given Best Supporting Actor (Female) for her role of a matriarch in Amit Sharma’s Badhaai Ho and Manoj Pahwa won the Best Supporting Actor (Male) for Mulk . Tumbbad , which premiered in the critics’ week section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival last year, also won multiple awards, including Best Cinematography, Best Background Score, and Best Production Design. ‘ Halla’ from Manmarziyan won Best Song.
The other Best Film awards were presented to Lathe Joshi (Marathi), PariyerumPerumal (Tamil), C/o Kancharapalem (Telugu), Reva (Gujarati), Pupa (Bengali), OndallaEradalla (Kannada), and Ee. Ma. Yau (Malayalam).
India’s first stunt woman Reshma Pathan was presented Extraordinary Achievement award by director Ramesh Sippy and scriptwriter Javed Akhtar for her contribution in movies like Sholay .
The awards, a joint venture of Film Critics Guild and Motion Content Group, aims to “uplift some of the most underrated films which are often overshadowed by commercial mammoths”.
Actors and filmmakers like Ms. Bhatt, Shabana Azmi, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Jackie Shroff, Boney Kapoor, Zoya Akhtar, Mr. Sippy, and Aditi Rao Hydari attended the ceremony.
