How Fair Is Filmfare?
- Amanda Sodhi

The Filmfare winners have finally been announced, and as usual, there are not many surprises—except for the Best Actor/Actress in a Comic Role and Best Actor/Actress in a Negative Role categories being eradicated—but there are plenty of disappointments. When I first learned that Darsheel Safary has been nominated in the best actor category, I thought, "Thank God! Filmfare is finally evolving into a credible awards ceremony." Unfortunately, I had jumped to that conclusion a bit too quickly, as it was King of Awards (SRK), not Darsheel who wound up receiving the Best Actor award. Although, it could have been worse—imagine Himesh Reshammiya bagging the Best Actor award! Well, at least the critics had enough sense to present Darsheel with their version of the Best Actors award.

On a more serious note, however, this year's Filmfare awards have led to an important question—how fair exactly is Filmfare? If one pays close attention to both the winners and nominees, many deserving recipients have been devoid of consideration on part of Filmfare.

Let's take a look at those who deserved to but didn't make it onto Film(un-fair)'s list of nominees (and perhaps even winners).

1. Gandhi My Father

Nomination Deprived of: Best Story (Feroz Abbas Khan)

2. Akshay Kumar

Nominations Deprived of: Best Actor in a Comic Role (there was no category) for Bhool Bhulaiya, Namastey London, Heyy Babby

3. Pankaj Kapur

Nominations Deprived of: Best Actor (or perhaps, best actor in a supporting role) for Chatri Chor & Best Actor in a Lead Role for Dharm

4. Akshaye Khanna

Nomination Deprived of: Best Actor in a Lead Role for Gandhi, My Father

5. Vishal Bharadwaj

Nominations Deprived of: Best Director for Chatri Chor; Best Music Score for No Smoking

6. 1971

Nomination Deprived of: Best Story (Amrit Sagar)

7. Piyush Mishra

Nomination Deprived of: Best Screenplay (1971)

8. Amit Sagar

Nomination Deprived of: Best Director (1971)

9. Akash Sagar

Nomination Deprived of: Best Music Score for 1971

10. Mithoon Sharma

Nomination Deprived of: Best Music for Anwar

11. Shilpa Rao:

Nomination Deprived of: Best Female Playback Singer for Tosey Naainaa (Anwar)

12. Bheja Fry

Nomination Deprived of: Best Screenplay (Sagar Balary & Arpita Chatterjee)

13. Vinay Pathak

Nomination Deprived of: Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male) for Bheja Fry

14. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

Nominations Deprived of: Best Singer for O Re Piya (Aaja Nachle), Main Jahaan Bhi Rahoon (Namastey London)

15. Himesh Reshammiya

Nominations Deprived of (no, don’t worry—I'm not suggesting he was deprived of an award for his acting skills): Best Music Score for Namastey London, Aap Kaa Surroor The Real Luv Story

16. Siddharth Koirala

Nomination Deprived of: Best Debut (Male) for Anwar

17. Jag Mundhra

Nomination Deprived of: Best Director (Provoked)

18. Aishwarya Rai:

Nomination Derived of: Best Actress in a Lead Role for Provoked

19. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

Nominations Deprived of: Best Music Score for Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Taare Zameen Par, and Heyy Babby (Mast Kalandar)

20. Vishal Bharadwaj

Nomination Deprived of: Best Music Score for No Smoking

21. Gulzar

Nomination Deprived of: Best Lyrics for any of the songs in No Smoking

22. Bhavna Talwar

Nomination Deprived of: Best Director (Dharm)

23. Bappa Lahiri

Nomination Deprived of: Best Music Score for Dus Kahaniyan (Mushkil Khushaa)

24. Zubeen Garg

Nomination Deprived of: Best Male Playback Singer (Who Bheege Pal; Manorama Six Feet Under)

25. Maryem Tollar

Nomination Deprived of: Best Female Playback Singer (Mayya Mayya; Guru)

This list could just go on and on. Yes, it is true that one can not please everyone. Where there are winners, there are bound to be losers. Yet, it would have been thoughtful if an old institution such as Filmfare had bothered to even acknowledge a fraction of the films and artists on this list for their hard work and talent. At least there is the IFFA awards to look forward to. Perhaps an award ceremony trying to garner "international" presence for Bollywood will live up to higher standards.

All these Indian films award shows are so mediocre that you just can't take them seriously. I mean look at just how many of these 'Indian film' award shows there are and not one of them is any good. Filmfare's awards proved that they can certainly give awards to those who don't deserve it. As for the IIFA's, they're no better and hardly India's equivalent to the Oscars as they like to claim. They only really recognise bollywood (mumbai commercial films) not so much art house or even regional cinema, so they really shouldn't call themselves International Indian film awards. As a matter of fact with a title like that you'd think they'd be awarding 'International' Indian films (films like Monsoon Wedding, Earth, Water) that are intended for an international audience. I think at some of these award shows they give out one award to a non-bollywood film.

Shahrukh Khan winning again doesn't surprise me even though he was nothing special in Om Shanti Om, it just goes to show how the people who give out these awards think, when they can ignore so many better performaces this past year from other actors.