| National Film Award for Best Screenplay | |
|---|---|
| National award for contributions toIndian Cinema | |
| Awarded for | Best screenplay for a feature film for a year |
| Sponsored by | National Film Development Corporation of India |
| Rewards |
|
| First award | 1967 (Screenplay Writer (Original)) 2009 (Screenplay Writer (Adapted)) 2009 (Dialogue) |
| Final award | 2023 |
| Most recent winner |
|
| Highlights | |
| Total awarded | 69 (Screenplay Writer [Original]) 18 (Screenplay Writer [Adapted]) 14 (Dialogue) |
| First winner | S. L. Puram Sadanandan |
The National Film Award for Best Screenplay is one of the categories in theNational Film Awards presented annually by theNational Film Development Corporation of India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded withRajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). The award is announced for films produced in a year across the country, in all Indian languages. As of 2024[update], the award comprises aRajat Kamal, a certificate, and a cash prize of₹2,00,000.[1]
The National Film Awards were established in 1954 to "encourage production of the films of a high aesthetic and technical standard and educational and culture value" and also planned to include awards for regional films.[2][3] The awards were instituted as the "State Awards for Films" but were renamed to "National Film Awards" at the15th National Film Awards in 1967 and a new category of award for Best Screenplay was introduced, presented with a plaque and a cash prize.[4] At the57th National Film Awards in 2009, theScreenplay award was reclassified into three different awards: Screenplay Writer (Original), Screenplay Writer (Adapted), andDialogues.[5] Although the Indian film industry produces films in around twentylanguages and dialects,[6] as of 2022 edition, the seventy-three unique writers who have been awarded, have worked in nine major languages:Hindi (twenty awards),Malayalam (twelve awards),Bengali (eleven awards),Tamil (nine awards),Marathi (seven awards),Kannada (five awards),Telugu (three awards), English (two awards),Sanskrit andAssamese (one award each).
The inaugural award, in 1967, of this category was presented toS. L. Puram Sadanandan for the Malayalam filmAgniputhri.[4] No award was presented at the23rd National Film Awards (1975).[7] As of 2016[update], Malayalam author and screenplay writerM. T. Vasudevan Nair holds the record of winning maximum awards in category with four wins for the films:Oru Vadakkan Veeragadha (1989),Kadavu (1991),[8]Sadayam (1992),[9] andParinayam (1994).[10] Bengali filmmakerSatyajit Ray was presented the award in 1993 posthumously for the filmUttoran;[11] he had earlier received awards forPratidwandi (1970) andSonar Kella (1974).[12][13] At the59th National Film Awards in 2011,Girish Kulkarni was awarded both theBest Actor and Best Dialogue Awards for theMarathi filmDeool. The film was itself was adjudged theBest Feature Film.[14] In 2015 at the63rd ceremony, the awards for both Original Screenplay and Dialogue were jointly presented toJuhi Chaturvedi andHimanshu Sharma for their filmsPiku andTanu Weds Manu: Returns, respectively.[15]
As of 2022[update], sixty-nine awards have been presented for Original Screenplay writing, eighteen for Adapted Screenplay writing, and fourteen for dialogue.
The first recipient of the award,S. L. Puram Sadanandan, was presented with a plaque and₹ 5000 cash prize.[4] The award was revised in 1973 at the21st ceremony to include₹ 10,000 cash, a silver medal and a certificate. It was shared byMrinal Sen and Ashish Burman for their Bengali filmPadatik.[16] At the54th awarding ceremony in 2006, the next revision of the award was declared to include cash remuneration of₹50,000 which was presented toAbhijat Joshi,Rajkumar Hirani andVidhu Vinod Chopra for their Hindi filmLage Raho Munna Bhai in whichMahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence was depicted.[17] At the70th National Film Awards (2022), the cash prize was revised to₹2,00,000.[18]
For fourteen times, multiple writers were awarded for their work in a single film;Mrinal Sen and Ashish Burman forPadatik (1973),Satyadev Dubey,Shyam Benegal, andGirish Karnad forBhumika (1977), T. S. Ranga andT. S. Nagabharana forGrahana (1978),Ashok Mishra andSaeed Akhtar Mirza forNaseem (1995),Manoj Tyagi and Nina Arora forPage 3 (2004),Prakash Jha, Shridhar Raghavan, andManoj Tyagi forApaharan (2005),Abhijat Joshi,Rajkumar Hirani, andVidhu Vinod Chopra forLage Raho Munna Bhai (2006),Gopal Krishan Pai andGirish Kasaravalli forKanasemba Kudureyaneri (2009),P. F. Mathews and Harikrishna forKutty Srank (2009),Anant Mahadevan and Sanjay Pawar forMee Sindhutai Sapkal (2010),Vikas Bahl,Nitesh Tiwari, andVijay Maurya forChillar Party (2011), Bhavesh Mandalia andUmesh Shukla forOMG – Oh My God! (2012),Sriram Raghavan, Arijit Biswas, Yogesh Chandekar,Hemanth Rao, Pooja Ladha Surti forAndhadhun (2018),Sudha Kongara and Shalini Ushadevi forSoorarai Pottru (2020).[citation needed]
Shyamoli Banerjee Deb, one of the jury members at the53rd National Film Awards, filed a petition objecting to the selections in five awards categories; theBest Feature Film in Hindi, theBest First Film of a Director, theBest Actress, the Best Screenplay, and theBest Special Effects. Deb challenged the decision to confer the award toPrakash Jha, Shridhar Raghavan, andManoj Tyagi for the Hindi filmApaharan and claimed that the film was not in the primary selection list. TheDelhi High Court put astay on the announcement and requested a reply from theDirectorate of Film Festivals.[19] Fourteen months later, Justice B. D. Ahmed removed the stay and the award was announced forApaharan.[20][21][22]
Following are the award winners over the years:
| Awards legends | |
|---|---|
| Screenplay Writer (Original) | |
| Screenplay Writer (Adapted) | |
| Dialogue | |