68th National Film Awards 2022: Happy that a political satire is recognised, says Madonne Ashwin 

Filmmaker Madonne Ashwin, who made directorial debut with Mandela, bagged the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director at the 68^th National Film Awards 2022 announced on Friday. In addition to this, the director also won award for dialogue writer for the film.

Madonne helmed Mandela, a political satire film headlined by Yogi Babu. The film features the actor as a Dalit barber, whose vote becomes crucial in the local polls, due to swing voting situation.

Speaking to Cinema Express, Madonne Ashwin said, “I am so happy that the hard work has paid off. I must say that this is not a one man’s effort. It is also my team that has won the awards. All the more, I am elated that a political satire has been recognised. It is a new thing because; usually such films may come under notion that they are created with political agendas. But this film managed to not hurt anyone in the process. I see the film’s biggest success to be the recognition it got among the common people.”

Madonne also said in excitement that the team did not expect two awards for the film, but elated over the fact that the film was able to get its due recognition. It is to be noted that earlier Madonne’s short film Dharmam had won a special mention by the jury of the 61st National Film Awards 2013. “I had earlier won the National Film Award for a short film, but winning for Mandela is truly joyous.”

Mandela is currently streaming on Netflix.

Meanwhile, it is a big win for south Indian films at the National Film Awards this year. The other Tamil films which came out with flying colours were Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum and Soorarai Pottru. While Soorarai Pottru took home a rich haul of awards, including Best Film, Best Actor (Suriya), Best Actress (Aparna Balamurali), Best Background Score (GV Prakash), and Best Screenplay (Shalini Usha Nair and Sudha Kongara),  Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum earned Best Editing (Sreekar Prasad), Best Supporting Actress (Lakshmipriyaa Chandramouli) and Best Feature Film in Tamil.