68th National Film Awards: Dollu director Sagar Puranik responds to Resul Pookutty and sync sound controversy

Earlier today, at the 68th National Film Awards, Sagar Puranik’s debut film Dollu won the award for Best Kannada Film. Dollu revolves around a boy who decides to join a group of Dollu folk artists and goes on a journey of self-discovery. 

The film also won an award for Best Audiography under the Location Sound Recordist category (for sync sound films only). Jobin Jayan took home the award for his work in the film.

Immediately after the announcement, experts in the field called the jury out for erroneously giving the award to Dollu, as it was not a sync sound film. Oscar Award-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty wrote on Twitter “The film that won the #SyncSoundRecording #NationalAwards is not even a sync sound film, it’s a dubbed film, confirms the Sound Designer of the film @nithin_lukose.”
 

Nithin quoted the tweet with a response saying “I don't know what happened behind the curtains of the National Award selections and its procedures, But I pity the judgement of the jury who couldn't differentiate between a dub and a sync sound film, claiming to be the experts in the scenario!” 
 

When we reached out to director Sagar Puranik for clarification, he opened the statement by expressing his respect and regards for Resul Pookutty's achievement. He went on to address the controversy, and said, “We never claimed that our film is a sync sound film. Even in the application form, there is no mention of the word sync sound. I am also slightly confused as to why we have been awarded under this category. But I’m assuming they have given the award probably recognising and acknowledging how hard it is for us to recreate the sounds of Dollu. We have three to four performances in the entire film. This is not recreated in a studio setup. We had to go on the ground, to the location where eight to ten Dollu artists had to recreate every frame and every beat of the performance. The jury members had probably considered all this before deciding to give us the award. However, we have never claimed and will never claim that ours is a sync sound film.”

The officials from the National Awards committee are yet to address the controversy and clear out any confusion.