National film awards presented

Veteran director, Adoor Gopalakrishnan was tonight presented the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his outstanding contribution to Indian cinema while Bollywood star, Saif Ali Khan and Kannada actress, Thaara received the national film awards for best actor and actress.

The awards for 2004 were presented by the President, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam at a glittering function here.

A highlight of the function was presentation awards to Page 3 directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, which stole the limelight by winning three honours in the feature film section — the Swarna Kamal for best film, best screenplay and best editing.

Dinabandhoo was presented the award for the best film in Assamese, Krantikaal in Bengali, Beru in Kannada, Aleesha in Konkani, Akale in Malayalam, Uttarayan in Marathi and Des Hoya Pardes in Punjabi.

Girni in Marathi won the award for best non-feature film while Ek Sagar Kinare... (Marathi/English) was given the award the best first non-feature film of a director.