‘Paan Singh Tomar`, `Barfi` rock Screen Awards

Mumbai: Offbeat cinema turned out to be the toast of the season with ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ and ‘Barfi!’ sharing the best film title, and its lead actors - Irrfan Khan and Ranbir Kapoor respectively, lifting the best actor`s trophy at the 19th Annual Screen Awards Saturday night.

Vidya Balan won her fourth consecutive best actress Screen award for her role as Vidya Bagchi in hit thriller ‘Kahaani’. Her earlier wins were for ‘Paa’, ‘Ishqiya’ and ‘The Dirty Picture’. Irrfan essayed the role of former national steeplechase champion-turned-bandit Paan Singh Tomar in the biopic ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, while Ranbir wowed everyone with his heart-warming performance as deaf and mute Murphy in ‘Barfi!’. In terms of direction too, commercial entertainers took a backseat with Anurag Basu winning the best director award for ‘Barfi!’. Megastar Amitabh Bachchan received a special award at the event, while late filmmaker Yash Chopra, who died in October 2012, was conferred the lifetime achievement award. The evening was laced with power-packed performances by’"Student of the Year’ stars Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra and Alia Bhatt, apart from livewire dances by Sonakshi Sinha, Ranveer Singh and Priyanka Chopra. For the first time, the mother-son duo of Neetu Kapoor and Ranbir took onto the stage to pay a tribute to Bollywood. The glittering ceremony saw Bollywood`s creme de la creme - Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif, Amitabh, Jaya Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan in attendance. There were others too - Prem Chopra, Parineeti Chopra, Sudhir Mishra, Arjun Rampal, Arbaaz Khan, Malaika Arora Khan, Arjun Kapoor, Prabhudheva, Zeenat Aman, Sujoy Ghosh, Jacqueline Fernandez, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Abbas-Mustan, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Gulzar, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sunny Leone. The event was hosted by Shah Rukh, Karan Johar and Ayushmann Khurrana, who bagged the best newcomer (male) award for his performance in ‘Vicky Donor’. IANS