16th National Film Awards

Updated on Nov 17, 2023

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Official website dff.nic.in Date 13 February 1970 Location Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi		Best Feature Film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne Other ceremonies 1968, 1970 Sites Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi

Awarded for Best of Indian cinema in 1968 Presented on 13 February 1970 (1970-02-13) Most awards Aashirwad, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, Kuzhanthaikkaga, Saraswatichandra, Thillaanaa Mohanambal and Thulabharam (2) Presented by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

The 16th National Film Awards, presented by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of Indian Cinema released in 1968. Ceremony took place at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on 13 February 1970.

With 16th National Film Awards, three new awards were introduced, mainly for Best Film on Family Welfare, Best Child Artist and Best Film Lyric Writer. Moreover, for male and female singers, awards were differentiated with Best Male Playback Singer and Best Female Playback Singer respectively.

Juries

Six different committees were formed based on the film making sectors in India, mainly based in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras along with the award categories. Another committee for all India level was also formed which included some of the members from regional committee. For 16th National Film Awards, central committee was headed by Justice G. D. Khosla.

Jury Members: Central

G. D. Khosla (Chairperson) • Sitaram Kesri • Shiela Bhatia • A. C. Jalan • Ezra Mir • B. K. Karanjia • Teji Bachchan • I. S. Johar • Haridas Bhattacharjee • U. Visweswar Rao • Sunder Lal Nahata • M. N. Kapur

Jury Members: Documentary

D. K. Borooah (Chairperson) • Shambu Mitra • Mrinalini Sarabhai • G. G. Swell • Shanta Gandhi

Jury Members: Short Films

Piloo Mody (Chairperson) • Balwant Gargi • Amita Malik • R. G. Anand • Inder Lal Das

Jury Regional: Bombay

Nissim Ezekiel (Chairperson) • Urmila Kapur • Navin Khandwalla • R. S. Pande • Firoze Rangoonwalla • Bikram Singh • Bal Chhabda • Shatrujit Paul • Buny Talwar • G. P. Shirke

Jury Regional: Calcutta

Amala Shankar (Chairperson) • Roma Choudhry • Chintamani Kar • K. C. Panigrahi • A. K. Pramanick • Utpal Dutta • Kanan Devi • Kartic Chatterjee • Durgadas Mitra

Jury Regional: Madras

C. R. Pattabhiraman (Chairperson) • P. Achutha Menon • R. K. Narayan • Mallikarjuna Rao • Sarojini Varadappan • K. Manoharan • Rajammal Anantharaman • V. C. Subburaman • D. V. S. Raju • B. Ananthaswami

Awards

Awards were divided into feature films and non-feature films.

President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film is now better known as National Film Award for Best Feature Film, whereas President's Gold Medal for the Best Documentary Film is analogous to today's National Film Award for Best Non-Feature Film. For children's films, Prime Minister's Gold Medal is now given as National Film Award for Best Children's Film. At the regional level, President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film is now given as National Film Award for Best Feature Film in a particular language. Certificate of Merit in all the categories is discontinued over the years.

Feature films

Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 16th National Film Awards, a Bengali film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne won the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film, with also winning the maximum number of awards (two); along with two Hindi films, Aashirwad and Saraswatichandra with a Malayalam film, Thulabharam and a Tamil film, Thillaanaa Mohanambal. Following were the awards given in each category:

All India Award

Following were the awards given:

Regional Award

The awards were given to the best films made in the regional languages of India. For feature films in Assamese, English, Gujarati, Kashmiri and Punjabi language, President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film was not given.

Non-Feature films

Following were the awards given:

Awards not given

Following were the awards not given as no film was found to be suitable for the award:

References

16th National Film Awards Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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