National Awards are complete farce this year: Director of 'Chauthi Koot'

Director Gurvinder Singh, whose internationally acclaimed Punjabi film "Chauthi Koot" has been honoured with a National Film Award, says regional cinema has been neglected this year in favour of "commercial films". So, he feels it's all a "complete farce".

"Chauthi Koot", which has been screened at various international film festivals including the 2015 Cannes International Film Festival and Singapore International Film Festival, was named as the Best Punjabi Film at the 63rd National Film Awards announcement here on Monday.

Singh says the National Award for his movie was "expected".

"All the main awards have gone to commercial films. 'Baahubali', which is a totally crap film has got the Best Film award. I think it is a BJP award and not National Award," Singh told IANS.

"It's a complete farce and all the art films have been neglected this time. The National Awards are mainly meant for regional cinema, but they have been completely neglected this time. Overall, all the awards have gone to Bollywood," added Singh, pointing to the victory of films like "Baahubali: The Beginning", "Tanu Weds Manu Returns", "Piku", "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" and "Bajirao Mastani".

Interestingly, apart from the southern magnum opus "Baahubali", no other regional film was given a mainstream award this year. On social media platforms, the winners got a lot of flak.