Vice President to honour winners at 59th National Film Awards

New Delhi: Vice President M Hamid Ansari will bestow the prestigious 59th National Film Awards to winners here on May 3.

Officials of the Information and Broadcasting ministry said that while national awards are traditionally given by the President every year but this year will see an exception since President Pratibha Patil is currently on a foreign visit. Vice President has been requested by the ministry to give awards to the winners and the request has been accepted by him, officials said. The date, May 3, has been finalized as the day for the National Awards as it marks the release day of the iconic movie ‘Raja Harishchandra’. The day also marks the beginning of the hundredth year of Hindi Cinema. The winners of the 59th National Film Awards have already been announced and the Best Film award will be shared by films ‘Deool’ (Marathi) produced by Abhijeet Gholap and directed by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni and ‘Byari’ (Byari language) produced by TH Althaf Hussain and directed by Suveeran. The Best Actor award will be given to Girish Kulkarni for ‘Deool’ and Best Actress to Vidya Balan for ‘The Dirty Picture’ (Hindi). Veteran Bengali film actor Soumitra Chatterjee will be honoured with the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke award. PTI