Suriya and Soorarai Pottru’s National Award Win Controversy Explained: Why 68th National Film Awards Is Under the Radar for Allegations of ‘Biased’ Jury!

Nearly every year the National Film Awards finds itself landing in one controversy after another once the jury announces its winners. The recently announced 68th National Film Awards is no different. Selecting the winners out of the film that were censored between January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020, the National Film Awards have major honours to films like Soorarai Pottru, Tanhaji - The Unsung Warrior, Ayyappanum Koshiyum among others. However, for this story, let's talk about Soorarai Pottru, written and directed by Sudha Kongara, and starring Suriya and Aparna Balamurali in the lead. Suriya’s National Award Win For Soorarai Pottru Gets Questioned Over Allegations That His Manager Was Part Of Awards Jury.

At the 68th National Film Awards, Soorarai Pottru won five awards - Best Feature Film, Best Actor for Suriya Sivakumar (also its co-producer), Best Actress  for Aparna Balamurali, Best Screenplay for Sudha Kongara and Shalini Usha Nair and Best Background Score for GV Prakash Kumar. Soorarai Pottru was one of the popular Indian films in 2020, which had earned tremendous fan love and warm critical reception. Soorarai Pottru Movie Review: Suriya Flies High in Sudha Kongara’s Well-Told and Immersive Underdog Tale.

So when the movie won multiple honours at 68th National Film, no one batted eyelids much as already there was a lot of pre-hype going on about Suriya winning National Award for his performance. In fact, eyebrows were raised over him sharing the award for the Best Actor with Ajay Devgn for Tanhaji. However, now even Suriya's win, as well as the rest of Soorarai Pottru's National Award wins, is under the radar thanks to one name in the jury - S Thangadurai. 68th National Film Awards Winners List: Suriya’s Soorarai Pottru Wins Big, Ajay Devgn Shares Best Actor Award; Check Out the Complete List of Winners.

Thangadurai was part of the 11-member jury for selection for Feature Films headed by chairperson Vipul Shah. On the very same day as the winners were announced that is July 22, a  journalist called Valaipechi J Bismi (who is known for his controversial takes on reviews and news) alleged that the Thangadurai on the jury was the same person who is the manager for Suriya (among others) in his tweet.

The Tweet also shared the Twitter bio of Thangadurai that clearly states he is the manager of Suriya.

The very next day, Gayathri Raguramm - the TN BJP State President and a former actor and choreographer - also congratulated S Thangadurai by sharing picture of the jury along with Anurag Thakur, Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

BTW, here's a 2019 tweet of the person where he confirms being associated with actor Suriya after a small break.

So anyway, it took a couple of days for the revelation to create some chaos on Twitter, with some eminent journos and critics pointing out how someone associated with a 'winner' can be part of the jury, thus creating 'conflict of interest'.

Clash of Interest

ABC of Conflict of Interest!

Questioning the Whole Awards!

Legit Question

So should someone associate with a nominee, especially someone as close as a celebrity manager, be part of the National Film Awards jury? The official website of Directorate of Film Festivals that overlook the National awards only states this about the selection of jury - "The winners of the awards are decided by the Jury comprising persons distinguished in the field of cinema, other allied arts and humanities." However, 'conflict of interest' -  a genuine factor in determining any non-biased jury - is an issue that has raked up in the past as well.

Like for example, in 2017, when the 64th National Film Awards jury was headed by filmmaker Priyadarshan, his Malayalam film Oppam was kept out of the nominations. However, that didn't stop questions over certain winner choices of the jury that year when Akshay Kumar won the best actor for Rustom, with whom Priyadarshan has worked with in quite a few movies, including Hera Pheri and Garam Masala. Also Mohanlal - the lead actor of Oppam and also Priyadarshan's close friend - got 'Special Jury Award' for films like Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol, Janatha Garage and Pulimurugan.

Just an year earlier to this at 63rd National Film Awards, when music maestro Ilaiyaraaja (now Rajya Sabha member) won Best Background Score for Thaarai Thapattai, the win was questioned because his younger brother, composer Gangai Amaren was part of the selection jury.

Soorarai's Pottru's multiple wins over allegedly biased selection is one of the few controversies that 68th National Film Awards have been facing since the announcement. Many critics are questioning why Malayalam film The Great Indian Kitchen has not received a single award despite being censored in the period (it came out in 2021, but was censored in December 2020), and was one of the best films of the years. Another controversial ignored film was Nayanthara-produced Tamil film Koozhangal (censored on December 31, 2020) and was also India's official selection for Oscars in 2021. 68th National Film Awards: Resul Pookutty Points Out Error in Jury's Decision in Awarding Best Sync Sound Recording.

Also, Oscar winning sound designer Resul Pookutty had pointed out an error in jury's decision to award a dubbed film in the Sync sound recording category. So overall, 68th National Film Awards continues the tradition of creating enough fireworks with its controversies, just like many of its editions earlier.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 28, 2022 02:07 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).