Andhra Pradesh: Row over jury choice of movies for Nandi Awards

Vijayawada: The role played by the AP State Film Development Corporation (APSFDC) in selecting the jury and also in adjudicating the awards led to a loud outcry and many protests in the film industry. Several film critics asked aloud what was the message the state wanted to convey to the makers as well as audiences when the Nandi awards favoured an ‘A’ certificate for a clean family entertainer like ‘Manam’ starred by Akkineni family. Renowned lyric writers also pulled up the APSFDC, for its biased attitude towards selecting awards for writers. Reacting to the way the Nandi awards were chosen, former state chief secretary I.Y.R. Krsihna Rao felt that this culture was not recent. 

“It is the outcome of the exercise of a few people, over the years,” the former CS observed, adding that somehow Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu lost the ‘balancing act’, for which he has been known all along during his political career.  In fact, industry people are of the opinion that the selection of jury members could have been done more cautiously. 

“There is no point in criticising the awards after they are announced. The APSFDC should have selected impartially and politically non-inclined jury members,” observed Yarlagadda Ratnakumar, who is the chairman of ‘Y screens’. Mr Ratnakumar also found fault with the jury for not selecting the Rudrama Devi movie by Gunasekhar. “Such acts will discourage the industry from producing historical films which depict telugu culture and history,” he observed.

The social media also came down on APSFDC and the state government for its ‘biased’ way of selecting the movies for the Nandi awards. Mimicry artist Ramesh has posted on Facebook that gone are the days when artists used to get awards on the basis of their performance. 

Lalita Bhaskarabhatla has posted that the famous lyric “Oka Lalana” was a glaring omission from the Nandi awards. Famous lyric writer Bhaskarabhatla Ravikumar is the only lyricist who was not considered for any award! The majority of social networking sites also took strong objection to the selection of the jury done by the APSFDC.