Black dominates filmfare awards

Mumbai, Feb 25 (UNI) Continuing its dominance on the awards circuit in India, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Black' tonight bagged a lion's share of the awards at the 51st Filmfare awards.

'Black' won all the major critics as well as popular awards at the function - while it won the critics award for best actor and actress for Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee respectively as well as the critics award for Best film and best director award for Sanjay Leela Bhansali, it also won the popular awards for Best film and Best Director for Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Completing the dominance were the popular award for best actor for Amitabh Bachchan and that of best actress for Rani Mukherjee.

Further, 'Black' also bagged the award for Best Supporting actress for child actress Ayesha Kapoor. Overall, the film won 12 awards at the ceremony, including three technical awards- for Best cinematography, best background score and best editing.

Infact, Superstar Amitabh Bachchan was present himself to receive the award for Best actor, the first award function he was attending after being confined to bed for two months due to illness.

Also making their mark at the awards were Shaad Ali's 'Bunty Aur Babli' and Pradeep Sarkar's 'Parineeta'.

'Parineeta' dominated the technical awards - winning awards for Best Sound design, art direction and choregraphy, it also won the 'Face of the Year' award as well as best Female debutant award for Vidya Balan and the R D Burman award for best music director for Shantanu Moitra.

'Bunty aur Babli' hogged a lion share of the music awards - while veteran lyricist Gulzar won the Best lyricist award for 'Kajra Re', Alisha Chinai won the best female playback singer award for the song and Shankar Ehsan Loy won the award for Best music directors for the film.

This year, filmfare awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award to actress Shabana Azmi. Shabana received the award from Rani Mukherjee. In her speech, Ms Azmi said,''it is wonderful to win the Lifetime Achievement award for something which I enjoy doing.'' Also, conferred was a Power award to filmmaker Yash Chopra who received the award from superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

The Best Supporting actor award went to Abhishek Bachchan for his performance in Ramgopal Verma's 'Sarkar' while the award for best male playback singer went to Himesh Reshammiya for 'Aashiq banaya Aapne', Best villain award to Nana Patekar for 'Apharan' and the Best comedian award to Akshay Kumar for 'Garam Masala'.

Lending glitz and glamour to the star-studded event, which boasted of presence of the entire who's who of Bollywood, were a series of performances by several Bollywood stars.

A unique feature was the presence of Hollywood star Will Smith, who awarded the best actress award to Rani Mukherjee.

The highlight of the event was a scintillating performance by ''Bollywood's most charming and graceful actress'' Madhuri Dixit.

Looking breaktaking in an orange sari, Madhuri enthralled those present with her dance performance to songs like 'Maar Daala' and 'Dola Re Dola'. Madhuri's dances, her first public performance after a gap of nearly six years, was choreographer by her favourite choreographer Saroj Khan.

Another feature of the awards night was a performance by Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. Aishwarya, who enthralled audiences at last year's IIFA award with her performance to the 'Kajra Re' song, wowed audiences present at the Filmfare awards night with her dances on the same song. The awards function also had the new Bollywood heartthrob Abhishek Bachchan dance to the tunes of Bluffmaster songs like 'Ek Main Aur Ek Tu' and 'Right here right Now', the first time the actor was performing at a Filmfare awards function.

The awards night also witnessed stage performances by Emran hashmi, Udita Goswami and Neha Dhupia to chartbuster songs like 'Who lamhe', 'Ashiq Banaya Aapne' and 'Jhalak Dikhla Ja'. Also featured were performances by former Miss universe Lara Dutta to 'Kaisa Jadoo Dala re', Shilpa Shetty's sister Shamita Shetty (who paid a tribute to the late Parveen Babi) and the various finalists of the Indian Idol 2.

Adding a touch of humour to the proceedings with their 'wisecracks' were comperes Javed Jaffri and Cyrus Broacha.

UNI AR SK VP0110