Movies set to hog the limelight on the popular awards circuit

New Delhi, Jan 5: After earning audience applause and critical acclaim in equal measure through the last year, 'New Age' films like 'Lage Raho Munnabhai', 'Rang De Basanti' and 'Omkara' are all set to hog the limelight on the popular awards circuit, which kicks off tomorrow with the Star Screen awards, the first in the series for lauding the cinematic excellence of films released in 2006.

Dominating the list of nominations for the 13th annual Screen Awards are Rakeysh Mehra's 'Rang De Basanti', Raj Kumar Hirani's 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' and Vishal Bhardwaj's 'Omkara', films which have carved a place for themselves in the the pantheon of Indian cinema with their deft combination of ''a New Age Feel'' with a popular cinematic jargon, thus imparting them a measure of popular appeal.

That the film was lauded for its cinematic treatment as well as its performances was evident from the fact that while it bagged the nominations for Best Film, Best Director (Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra) and Best Actor (Aamir Khan), it also bagged as many as three nominations for Best Actor in a supporting role (Atul Kulkarni, Sharman Joshi and Kunal Kapoor), Best Actress in a supporting role (Kiran Kher) and the Most Promising Newcomer nomination for Siddharth.

The film also bagged nominations in a host of technical awards - Best Music as well as Best Background Music (A R Rahman), Best Lyrics (Prasoon Joshi), Best Screenplay (Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Rensil D' Silva), Best Dialogues (Prasoon Joshi and Rensil D'Silva), Best Story(Kamlesh Pandey), Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best choreography.

A close second in the nominations list is Vishal Bhardwaj's 'Omkara' with 18 nominations.

The film, which won plaudits at home as well as abroad with its brilliant adaptation of a Shakespeare's classic in the Indian setting, also bagged a host of nominations for its performances.

Apart from bagging the nomination for Best film, the film fetched for actor Ajay Devgan a nomination for Best Actor, a Best Actress nomination for Kareena, , Best Supporting Actress nomination for Konkona Sen Sharma and Best Villain nomination for Saif Ali Khan.

The film even bagged a host of nominations for its music - while it fetched for Gulzar, a nomination for Best Lyricist for the chart-topper 'Beedi Jalayale', a Best Playback singer nomination for Sukhwinder Singh for the song 'Omkara' and as many as three nominations for Best Female Playback Singer (Sunidhi Chauhan, Shreya Ghoshal and Rekha Bhardwaj). The film also created a record of sorts by fetching nomination for Vishal Bhardwaj in four categories - Best Music, Best Background Music, Best Dialogues and Best direction.

It also won nominations in the categories of Best Sound, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Choreography.

Close on the heels of 'Omkara' is Raj Kumar Hirani's 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' with as many as nine nominations including Best Film and Best Director for Raj Kumar Hirani. The film, reinstilled faith in th Gandhain gospels of truth and non-violent satyagraha in a nation plagued by consumerism and materialism and torn by violence through its brilliant message of relevance of Gandhian ideals in a modern context, fetched nominations for Rajkumar Hirani in the Best Story, Best Screenplay and Best Dialogue categories (the first two jointly with Abhijit Joshi). It also fetched for Swanand Kirkire the nomination for Best Lyricist for the moving song 'Bande Mein Tha Dum'.

Besides, the brilliant performances of Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi, who effectively brought home to the audiences the message of Gandhism to the modern generation fetched for them nominations in the Best Actor and Best Actor in a Supporting role categories.

Also making its presence felt at this year's screen awards are Mukesh Bhatt's 'Gangster', Sooraj Barjatya's 'Vivah', Nagesh Kukunoor's 'Dor', Kunal Kohli's 'Fanaa', Rakesh Roshan's 'Krrish', Sanjay Gadhvi's 'Dhoom 2' and Farhan Akhtar's 'Don'.

Infact, Mukesh Bhatt's 'Gangster', touted to be inspired by the life of a real-life don, sprung up a surprise by managing to bag nine nominations including those for Best Director (Anurag Basu), Best Villain (Shiney Ahuja), Most Promising Female Newcomer (Kangana Renaut), Best Background Music (Raju Singh) and Best male Playback singer (KK).

The film, which effectively captured the delimmas in the life of a gangster, fetched for Mahesh Bhatt a nomination for Best Story and for Anurag Basu a nomination for Best Screenplay. 'Gangster' also bagged nomination in the Best Sound and Best Editing categories.

For example a low-key release like Sooraj Barjatya's 'Vivah' bagged as many as five nominations in the popular category including Best Film, Best Director (Sooraj Barjatya), Best Actor for Shahid Kapoor, Best Actress for Amrita Rao and Best Supporting Actress for Seema Biswas. Another film 'Dor', directed by Nagesh Kukunoor and featuring actors like Ayesha Takia, Gul Panag and Shreyas Talpade, bagged six nominations including four in the popular category - Best Director (Nagesh Kukunoor), Best Actress (Ayesha Takia), Best Supporting Actress (Gul Panag) and Best comedian (Shreyas Talpade).

It also bagged nominations for Best background score and Best Lyrics.

While nominations in popular awards categories were dominated by 'Rang De Basanti''', 'Lage Raho Munnabhai'' and Omkara', action flicks like 'Don' 'Dhoom2' and 'Krrish' dominated the technical awards category while 'Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna' and 'Fanaa' bagged several nominations for their music.

'Fanaa' won nomination in the Best Music (Jatin Lalit), Best background Music (Sulim Sulaiman), Best Lyrics and Best male playback singer for Shaan, while 'Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna' bagged nominations for Best Music (Shankar-Ehsan- Loy), Best male playback singer (Shafqat Amanat Ali), Best Female playback singer (Alka Yagnik) and Best lyrics (Javed Akhtar).

Among the current top ranking stars only Aamir, Aiswarya and Hrithik managed to bag nominations in the Best Actor/Actress category.

While Hrithik bagged a nomination for Best Actor for both 'Dhoom 2' and 'Krrish', Aamir bagged the Best Actor nomination for 'Rang De Basanti' and Aishwarya bagged the Best Actress nomination for 'Dhoom 2'.

Among others who featured in the Best Actor, Actress nominations this year are Sanjay Dutt (age Raho Munnabhai), Ajay Devgan (Omkara) , Amrita Rao (Vivah), Ayesha Takia (Dor), Bipasha basu (Corporate), Kajol(Fanaa) and Kareena Kapoor (Omkara).

While Amitabh Bachchan got a nomination in the Best Supporting actor category for his role of 'sexy sam' in 'Kabhi Alvida na Kehna', Shahrukh was also nominated in the Best Villain category for 'Don'.

A special feature of the Star Screen Awards 2007 is that it will honour the most favourite on screen pair who have moved their fans with their acting talent and have left an everlasting impact on them. The nominees for the 'Jodi No 1' award, who have been chosen by the jury in this category, include Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherji in 'Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna', Sanjay Dutt and Vidya Balan in 'Lage Raho Munna Bhai', Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in 'Dhoom 2', Aamir Khan and Kajol in 'Fanaa', Salman Khan and Rani Mukherji in 'Baabul' and Shahid Kapur and Amrita Rao in 'Vivaah'.

UNI