May 11: The expert committee on National Film Awards, established by the Union I&B ministry to look into the upgradation of awards, has made several recommedations asking for drastic changes in the current format of the awards.
Amongst the key recommendations of the committee are the constitution of the jury. Official sources stated that it has recommended a two-tier viewing of films by jury to facilitate the selection process. “It has proposed a central jury and five regional juries to cover languages in different regions. It has also outlined guidelines for the regional jury composition,” sources added.
The committee also felt that in view of the need to fine tune the awards according to the emerging realities of cinema new awards needed to be established in the sphere of audiography, music, best screen play and dialogue. Shyam Benegal presented the committee’s report to Union minister for information and broadcasting Ambika Soni on Tuesday. In order to make the nomenclature of awards more contemporary, the committee has recommended the award for Best Art Direction be called Best Production Design. It has recommended the raising the number of awards in the feature film category from 31 to 34. It has also recommended raising the cash prize for special jury award feature films.