The 63rd National Film Awards honoured Baahubali: The Beginning as the Best Film and Sanjay Leela Bhansali as the Best Director for Bajirao Mastani. The VFX heavy films with immense work on creation of drama and phenomenal art of storytelling have bagged the award at the highest honourable ceremony that celebrates the work of Indian cinema to the fullest.
Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan won the Best Actor award for his role in Piku while Kangana Ranaut won Best Actress for her role in Tanu Weds Manu Returns.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali, during a radio interaction today morning, said, “National Film Awards is a huge honour of India, for the winners are selected with thorough analysis and views from eminent jury. Bajirao Mastani was my dream since 12 years therefore I have contributed everything I could in this film. I am really happy and I felt like (I’m) on the eleventh cloud when I received the news that I have won this award for my creation.”
The Mumbai based VFX studio NY VFXWAALA created the visual effects for Bajirao Mastani right from the tremendous background creation, battle sequences to various arms and equipments to match the historical era under the supervision of Prasad Sutar.
Baahubali: The Beginning, a creation of S. S. Rajamouli with the VFX supervision by Srinivas Mohan, was the biggest blockbuster of 2015 and became the highest grossing film of India with over 500 crore collection at the Indian box office itself. Apart from the script and effective storytelling, the film grabbed attention thus mesmerising viewers all over the globe due to its heavy use of visual effects as India had never seen such extensive use of VFX right from the alpha to omega of the film.
Background creation, crowd multiplication, the humongous waterfall, the bull fight and the epic battle sequences in Baahubali seem to be a flawless work of visual effects majorly done by the Hyderabad based studio Makuta VFX and Firefly Creative Studio along with several other VFX studios contributing their bit. The film consisted of around 90 per cent CGI work with over 2500 VFX shots that made the impossible possible for this film.
As VFX films stole the show, Animation too emerged victorious to demand its stand and express the skill and creativity of India. Studio Eeksaurus‘ animated film Fisherwoman and Tuk Tuk won the Best Animated Film at the 63rd National Film Awards. The short film is set in a coastal village, where the heat of the Indian summers, the stench of dried fish, the triumph of human endeavour against odds, the thrill of adventure, the over excited colours and loud music that blankets the solitude weave a story of a lonely Fisherwoman who lives her dreams through her hard earned Tuk-Tuk.
Creative director Suresh Eriyat has been creating a number of animation ad films and is best known for his recent Rajasthan Tourism sand art animation and Google Tanjore commercial. Speaking on the win, Eriyat said, “This is a moment of pride for the entire animation industry of India. There are two aspects I would like to highlight which are momentous, one being felicitated by the President of India at the most prestigious national event and the other is after years of hard work and persistent belief in our industry, being applauded for our first short film Fisherwoman and Tuk Tuk that has rolled out from our studio has changed perspectives.”
The National Film Awards honours the best films of Indian cinema and is considered as a prestige both of and for India. It acknowledges notable creations in different languages of the diversity of Indian cinema and this year the award was presented by our honourable president, Pranab Mukherjee .
This award also marks the directorial debut award for Sanajy Leela Bhansali for his role as director of the historical drama Bajirao Mastani. With VFX loaded films like Baahubali and Bajirao Mastani bagging the prestige of India, definitely it can be foretold that visual effects with a strong art of storytelling to portray an influential drama is the roadmap for the success of Indian cinema in the coming years.
