Mammootty and Prithviraj both come out ‘winners’ at 54th Kerala State Film Awards

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 16 (IANS) After veteran actor Mammootty lost out to upcoming star Prithviraj, when the latter walked away with the best actor award edging out the former, Mammootty bagged the best film award for ‘Kathal’ which he produced and starred in.

Minister for Culture and Films Saji Cherian announced the 54th Kerala State Film Awards here on Friday.

Prithviraj got the award for his stellar performance in the film ‘Goat Life’ directed by popular director Blessy. 'Goat Life' won nine awards.

Blessy for ‘Goat Life’ got the Best Director award and also won a second award for the screenplay- adaptation.

The other awards ‘Goat Life’ won included best cameraman ( K.S.Sunil), Oscar winner Resul Pookutty and Sharath Mohan got the best sound mixing, Best Makeup artist was Renjith Ampadi.

It also got the award for the most popular film and actor Gokul got a special jury mention.

The best actress award was shared by veteran Urvasi ( Ullaozhuku) and Beena R.Chandran ( Thadavu).

The biggest surprise this year was popular music director Vidhyadaran Master bagging the award for the best male singer, while Ann Amy was the best female singer.

The main jury was chaired by veteran Indian director Sudhir Mishra.

Cherian said the 54th awards saw the highest number of entries when 160 films contested of which 38 films were from debut directors.

“ The two sub-committees were headed by Priyanandan and N. Alagappan who saw 80 films each and then 38 films came before the main jury,” said Cherian.

Best actor Prithviraj said this is the third state award and it will go down as the toughest one.

"I feel excited and happy as this film came out like this because of a huge team effort. Am most happy as Blessy the director got the best director award. The award is for the entire team as this in 2009 looked only a dream and finally it became a reality . Blessy’s single minded focus and a very detailed screenplay were the crucial factors . As an actor I had enough and more material . Feel blessed and he gave me a lot of freedom. As an actor it was really challenging as physical transformation- losing weight is just one, but the biggest challenge was to get into the character and more so because the film shooting took 4 years and to maintain the character for long is also tough and hence this will be the toughest . Wish I get more such roles,” said Prithviraj.

Blessy said this is his third best director award in the 8 films he has directed.

“Of course I am happy and getting around nine awards is huge. I am most happy for Gokul for the special jury mention and it’s a great beginning for him. An award is not the biggest challenge, but to reach the audience and how they accept it. The biggest struggle was to visualize the book into a film,” said Blessy.

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