Debut directors impressed the most at National Awards: Hattangady

New Delhi -  Rohini Hattangady, the only Indian actress to have won the prestigious BAFTA award, says the new breed of directors are adept with the global appeal of the country's local social issues and the freshness and creativtity in their scripts impressed the National Awards jury.

"I think the young filmmakers are aware of global appeal nowadays because they don't just think only in terms of their region. They are going out of their region and globalising the issues of their region to make them universal," Rohini, chairperson of feature film jury for the 59th National Film Awards, told IANS.

"I think they are getting more aware of their societies and surroundings, and problems. So they are making efforts to bring those issues to the big screen. Of all entries, we felt work of debut directors was very promising" she added.

The 59th National Film Awards were announced here Wednesday

Rohini is a National award-winning actress herself.

She won the best supporting actress National award for Govind Nihalani's satirical drama "Party" in 1985, and is the only Indian actress to win a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award for best actress in a supporting role for her performance as Kasturba Gandhi in British filmmaker Richard Attenborough's 1982 film "Gandhi".

In the feature film jury of the 59th National Film Awards, she was accompanied by 10 others -- namely filmmakers K.P. Kumaran, Vinay Shukla, Prakash Belawadi abd Hiren Bora, actor Aloknanda Roy, film editor A.S. Kanal, academicians K. Hariharan and Ranjani Mazumdar, writer Kishwar Desai and former joint director of Osian's Cinefan film festival Latika Padgaonkar.

They adjudged Marathi film "Deool" and Kannada film "Byari" as the best films.

Rohini, 56, says it was fascinating to see the variety in cinema, and also the unique treatment to each of them.

"The treatment to issues is to watch out for. 'Deool' is very different from 'Byari'. Both the best films are totally different. While one takes into consideration the commercialisation of religion, 'Byari' is about the values of the Muslim community, wherein once you say 'talaak', you can't remarry that same person unless you first get married to someone else....

"So see the paradox -- one talks about commercialisation of religion, and the other questions religion with a straight face. These are the varied issues young filmmakers are picking on, and they are all very good subjects," she said.