The year may have been one of the best ones Telugu cinema has seen, but it has not been so without its fair share of controversies. The latest one to come to the fore is related to the recently announced Nandi Awards, with many filmmakers accusing the jury and the government of partiality and favouritism. Several filmmakers have even pointed out that many of the winners belong to the Kamma community.
Manchu Lakshmi
For the uninitiated, among the four top films of the year were Manam and Legend. While the critically and commercially acclaimed Manam stars all the three generations of the Akkineni family including ANR, Nagarjuna, and Naga Chaitanya, the Balakrishna-starrer Legend was released just ahead of the 2014 general elections and went on to become a blockbuster. And soon after the awards were announced — eight for Legend and four for Manam — it turned into a major controversy with a big section of movie buffs questioning the decision. In fact, the former won the best film award too!
Jagapathi Babu got an award for the film Legend, directed by Boyapati Srinivas and stars Balakrishna. Another flop film Hitudu received an important award perhaps because Jagapathi Babu was its lead actor
Interestingly, although Nagarjuna has announced that there are no differences between Balakrishna and him, these awards have proved once again that there is, indeed, a big clash. Producer Nallamalupu Srinivas (Bujji) opines that these awards are one-sided and community-based. “If you look at the majority of the winners, you can clearly understand that the Kamma community is being lobbied,” says the producer. Many others have commented that the awards are influenced by the Telugu Desam (TD) while some say that the jury is trying to impress Balakrishna.
“Manam is Akkineni Nageswara Rao’s last film and he acted till his last breath. He is a legendary actor and it is very sad that they neglected ANR and his film. I don’t know why they didn’t consider Manam. If there are any personal differences, it shouldn’t be shown in the awards. It should be shown outside that space,” says producer Bandla Ganesh, adding that he felt sorry for the NTR National Awards as well.
“There are legendary actors like Mohan Babu and Kaikala Satyanarayana in Telugu cinema, but the committee chooses a Tamil actor for it. Kaikala acted as a body double for the late NTR and he acted in many films along with NTR later. Mohan Babu is one of the best actors at present and he deserves the NTR Award. But why are we giving it to Tamil actors? Have any Telugu actors been honoured by the Tamil film industry in recent times?” questions Bandla.
Strange clause!
Anticipating the criticism they would get, the AP Government added a clause in the award applications. Rule 30 of the form states, “The persons who have gone public with criticism and casting aspersions on the decisions of the Jury members or the Corporation or the government, shall be disqualified from applying to any Government awards for a consequence period of three (3) years”.
A still from the movie Manam
Further talking about Rudhramadevi, which is a historic film, he says, “When they compared the two films — Baahubali and Rudhramadevi — they felt Baahubali was the best. But still they could have chosen this historic film as the second best. But they completely ignored it!”
Yevade Subramanyam, produced by Ashwini Dutt’s daughter, won an award. The dialogue writers of the film Krish Jagarlamudi and Koratala Siva also got awards and all of them belong to the same community, as do many of the other winners like Posani Krishna Murali, Rana Daggubati, M.M. Keeravani and Sravanthi Ravi Kishore (producer of Nenu Sailja)
Even producer Malkapuram Sivakumar bats for the historic film and says, “The Telangana government gave a tax exemption to Rudhramadevi and the AP government didn’t even consider it. Very sad that the film is being completely ignored.”
Loukyam was awarded the Best Popular Film for the year 2014; the film was produced by V. Anand Prasad. He made Paisa Vasool with Balakrishna. They are now thick as theives and are from the same community.
He added that his film Surya vs Surya deserves an award too. “The concept is new and most of the technicians are also new; it deserves an award. The present awards are completely influenced by the TDP and the jury tries to impress Balakrishna all the time,” he expresses.
