BREAKING: Akshay Kumar got The National Award for Rustom & Airlift, says Jury Head Priyadarshan

14 Apr 2017

AkshayKumarwhom the popular awards have eluded for years, is now the proud recipient of the National award for two of his back-to-back performances in 2016 in Airlift and Rustom.Strangely the list of winners declares Akshayas the winner of Rustom only. This left a lot of Akshays friends and collaborators confused. RajaKrishnaMenonwho has directed Akshay Kumar in Airlift said, I thought he won for Rustom.If he has won for Airlift as well, then I am over the moon.Akshaydefinitely deserves the award. Hes worked hard all these years and delivered some really great performances and I believe in Airlift he really pushed the boundaries to reach a place that very few actors reach. The National award juryshelmerPriyadarshanmakes it clear thatAkshayhas been awarded for the two films. Akshay has won the Best Actor award for both Airlift and Rustom For technical reasons only Rustom is mentioned in the list ofawardees. But he has given contrasting and extremely sensitive performances in both Airlift and Rustom , and we thought it was only fair to honour him for both, says filmmakerPriyadarshan, a long term admirer of Akshays work theyve collaborated on many comedies from HeraPheri to Khatta Meetha. Priyansays he was very impressed by the films in two languages this year. The Bengali and Marathi films submitted to us were truly outstanding. Id say these two regions led the awards race. There was unanimity about giving the best feature film award to the Marathi film Kaasav and the best director toRajeshMapuskarfor the Marathi film Ventilator.The Marathi and Bengali films were ahead of all the other languages. The only competition they had, came from Malayalam cinema, saysPriyanwhose very close collaborator and friend Mohanlal won the Special Jury Award for Pulimurugan,JanathaGarage and Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol.