A still from Paan Singh Tomar that won the best film award at the recently announced National Awards

We have finally realised the potential of good content in Bollywood, or so it seems. The list of films that bagged the recently announced National Awards reveal that it’s the sleeper hits that are the big winners this year.

The smallest films of the year that include Paan Singh Tomar, Vicky Donor, Kahaani and Chittagong with a subject, budget and cast that seemed most unlikely to click at the box office, have suddenly become the most successful films bagging the maximum number of awards.
Paan Singh Tomar bagged the award for the Best Film, and Irrfan Khan got the Best Actor award. Vicky Donor is riding high with three awards to its credit — Annu Kapoor and Dolly Ahluwalia for Best Supporting Actors and the Best Popular Film award. Sujoy Ghosh took away the Best Original Screenplay for Kahaani. And Bedabrata Pain’s Chittagong bagged the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a director.
Does that mean that we are at a place where the idea trumps the budget? “It’s always the idea that matters,” says Shoojit Sircar who always knew that his film, Vicky Donor, was different. He was even vocal about his disappointment with the jury when the film wasn’t sent as India’s choice to the Oscars. But he never thought that his film would win a National Award in the ‘popular category’.
“It only attests the fact that the taste of the audience is changing. They are becoming more mature in judging a film. A film based on a topic as taboo as sperm donation winning a National Award for popular film is a sign of that maturity,” says the director.
His contemporary, Sujoy Ghosh echoes the same opinion, and says, “It has never been about the budget. It’s always the content that’s the king. A 3 Idiots could not have been made in a small budget. But then you have to be practical in your approach. You can’t tell the story that you know would have a limited audience, in a large budget film, as you know you won’t be able to recover the cost,” says Sujoy, who thinks the audience too has started embracing the content more than the presence of a star or a big budget.
These filmmakers say that the quality of cinema has improved in the last few years. While the gap between art house and commercial films started reducing some time back, now the gap is further bridged. Nila Madhab Panda, whose film I Am Kalam too won a National Award, says that we have entered a phase where cinema is being celebrated.
“Good cinema has never been about budget or star power any way. Iranian films manage to bag Oscars almost every time despite the fact that they are usually made on shoestring budgets and don’t boast of any big names. It’s just that we too have realised that of late,” Panda says.
For some, it’s the exposure that has brought this change. Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who after a long struggle has finally made a mark in the industry, thinks that the audience has started accepting the unconventional because they are more aware now.
“Social media has brought a huge change. And in the last few years, the audience have got an easier access to the world cinema because of internet connectivity. Now, they know what good cinema means, as they are watching films from around the world. Their knowledge about films is not restricted to the big banners from India. That has made a huge change and would keep doing so in the time to come,” says the actor who bagged the Special Jury National Award for his work in films like Gangs of Wasseypur, Kahaani and Talaash.