Established in 1954, the National Film Awards is considered as the most prominent film award ceremony in India. A national panel appointed by the government selects the winning entry with the President of India presenting the awards. Unlike the Academy Awards, more popularly called the Oscars which is voted in by a large number of people that is selected for the same, the National Film Award Jury mostly comprises of film makers and other officials and some awards have earlier come under scrutiny and public firing over nepotism. Yet, there is no doubt that the National Film Awards, which is given in a formal ceremony without any glamour and pomp that mostly occupies award ceremonies is still regarded as the most distinguished and respected in film circles. The announcement of the awards every year is followed with great media interest and commentary. Increasingly, there is a now a shift in what were once called ‘regional films’ getting edged out by Hindi films though there are layers to this phenomenon. In an earlier era, Hindi films also called Bollywood films were considered to be potboilers and the stuff of cheesy masala content and not much to take home. The ‘regional films’ were what was considered more mature though even within Hindi films, there was the term and category of ‘art films’ that moved away from Hindi film stero-types of song, dance and drama. But keeping up with the adage that the only constant in life is change, there has over the past decade emerged a space for Hindi films that do not go on the path of masala films but are not considered art films either. Films like this year’s Paan Singh Tomaar based on the life of a national level athlete who went on to take up arms wheh he gets caught in between a career that does not pick and a family dispute that he gets dragged into. Apart from the National film award honour now, the film raked in money, which mirrored the audience appreciation: this for a Hindi film that had no ‘item’ songs or even a star. What it had was a gritty story and a power packed performance from the lead actor.
In the scheme of the National Film awards, films from Manipur made its entry into the world of films with Matamgi Manipur in 1972 which was awarded the National film award for best Manipuri film the same year. The film had an actor who was to turn director and incidentally, the most feted film director of the state till date, Shri Aribam Syam Sharma. Making his directorial debut with Lamja Parshuram in 1974, a huge commercial success in Manipur, Eigya Syam as he is popularly called and known by, went on to make critics stand up and discover the tiny state of Manipur and its penchant for throwing up geniuses with ‘Imagi Ningthem’ received the Golden Montgolfiere in the Nantes film festival in 1982. And before the national media started going into overdrive with the glamour of Indian actors at the Cannes where they have at best got their photographs taken, Eigya Syam’ s ‘Ishaanou’ (1990) was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. In the annals of the National Film awards too, the announcement of ‘Leipaklei’ as the best Manipuri film makes it the third time at the National level. But given the quantum leap in film making concept, resources and the markets available for films with universal themes, there is a niggling doubt of whether Manipuri feature films have it in them to get the National award not in the language category but in the main category. There would be more honour in that rather than getting an allocated category award.
There is no dearth of Manipuri feature films hitting theatres in the state today. A film maker from Mumbai who incidentally made another award winning documentary film on Manipuri films had this to say that the rush of films in Manipur and their crass commercial nature without any satisfaction in terms of creativity and content would over a period of time turn its way to more soulful beginnings. She had pointed out that this exact path was where Bollywood films had gone to and then leading to the new age phenomenon of films like Paan Singh Tomaar and others. Perhaps, more than ever, that hope needs to be translated into real term action and the talent, expertise and creativity of earlier film makers combine with the new crop to make Manipuri feature films a force to reckon with on the National level.