71st National Film Awards: Baby and Hanuman score big

At the National Film Awards that were announced earlier today, Baby and Hanuman won some of the major honours, among a few other Telugu films that were in the winners' list. Directed by Sai Rajesh Neelam, Baby won the award for Best Screenplay, sharing the honours with Tamil film Parking. The film also bagged the award for Best Playback Singer (PVNS Rohit for the song ‘Premisthuna’).

Meanwhile, Hanu-Man, the mythological superhero film by Prasanth Varma, won the National award for best action direction. The Teja Sajja starrer also won the award for Best Film in AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics).

Other Telugu films that won this year include Gandhi Tatha Chettu, for which Sukriti Veni Bandreddi won the Best Child Artist award. Additionally, Kasarla Shyam won the Best Lyricist award for his song ‘Ooru Palleturu’ for Balagam. 

Anil Ravipudi’s Bhagavanth Kesari, meanwhile, won the award for Best Feature Film in Telugu. 

The leading winners at this edition of National Awards were Animal and Sam Bahadur, which won 3 awards each. Meanwhile, films like Pookkalam, Jawan, The Kerala Story, 12th Fail and Rocky Ranii Ki Prem Kahaani won 2 awards each.