Filmfare Awards

Getting the top honours in a particular field is a matter to gloat about and take pride of the fact. People in the Indian Cinema industry have always held certain awards in highest esteem. These awards are given to achievers in different aspects of film making, where their talent is adjudged as the best among the best. Filmfare Awards is one of those award ceremonies, which is awaited impatiently by the film fraternity in India. Even though it is a celebration of the Indian cinema, particularly Bollywood, eminent personalities from all over the country are invited to be a part of the movie industry’s biggest gala. It has been more than half a decade that the Bollywood industry’s achievement has been commemorated with splendour and fun. The tradition is an annual affair, where the year’s movie releases are taken into account and the best efforts in different aspects are awarded with a statuette.

Beginning

Start of the Filmfare Awards was done in 1954, by The Times Group, in order to promote and encourage talent, artistic creativity and technical brilliance in Bollywood. It is supposedly the oldest and the most talked about awards event in Bollywood film industry. Since the year 1954, it has been organised in Mumbai, although for a few years as in 1987 and 1988, it was cancelled for security reasons. In 2013, Filmfare Awards would be given for the best film and other categories in January 24th 2014, in Yashraj Studio in Mumbai, which would be the 59th Filmfare Awards held in the 101th year of Indian cinema.

When the Filmfare Awards were given in 1954, these were known as The Clare Awards or The Clares based on the name of the editor of Times of India, Clare Mendonca. The winners were decided by the readers of the magazine Filmfare through polling system. The first ceremony was held in Metro Theatre of Mumbai with only five awards being presented. This event was graced by Gregory Peck from Hollywood, but he could only attend the banquet ceremony. The presence of such a star from Hollywood was a sign of the universal acceptance of Indian Cinema on a global front. In the coming years, more award categories were gradually added to the list of awardees and now there are 37 awards which are given under the Filmfare Awards.

Filmfare awards ceremony is organised by Filmfare magazine which is published by Worldwide Media and is cosponsored by many other prominent brands of India as well as foreign countries. Since the last few years, the mobile data provider Idea Cellular has been associated with the Filmfare Awards for which the ceremony is named as Idea Filmfare Awards.

The awards night to be organised in 2014 for the movies released in 2013 would be a grand function as declared by the CEO of Worldwide Media and a few celebrities from Indian Bollywood industry. There are about 130 films released in the year, which would be selected from the popular votes of the readers of Filmfare Magazine and a jury. With this voting system, popular awards as well as critics’ awards would be chosen.

Trophy

During the Filmfare Awards night, the trophies given out to the winners have special significance for them as their talent is recognised on a popular basis. Besides that, the trophy itself has a long history, associated with the beginning of the Filmfare Awards in India. The trophy is in the form of a statuette which depicts a woman with her raised arms, meeting over her head with fingers touching. It is referred to as The Black Lady. The first of these statuettes were designed by NG Phansare in collaboration with Walter Langhammer, who during those days was the art director with Times of India. Usually, these statuettes were made of bronze, but the ones given out in 25th Filmfare Awards were designed with silver and from gold in the 50th ceremony. The Award Gallery is the currently manufacturer of these trophies or statuettes.

Awards

In 2014, there will be 37 categories under which the Filmfare Awards would be given out. This would be for the popular awards only. There will be a separate section for the critics’ awards which is to be decided by well known film critics. Popular awards, on the other hand, would be selected purely on the basis of voting by the public. Basically, the awards have been divided into the popular awards category and the critics’ awards category.  

Artistic or merit awards are given out for best film, actor, female actor, supporting actor and female actor, negative role, comic role, female and male debut, director, singers and few others. Technical category awards are given to people working behind the scenes, who are basically responsible for giving the look and shape to the film, in the way in which people look at them in the theatres. Hence, giving out the technical Filmfare Awards is one of the best ways to recognise the art of filmmaking also. Some of these are the art director, screenplay, sound recording, choreography, costume design and special effects. Critics’ awards are given to best movie, best actor, female actor and best documentary. Besides all these categories, there are some special awards like Lifetime Achievement Award, special performance award, best scene of the year, RD Burman Award for New Music Talent and so on.

As the years have passed for the Filmfare Awards, many talents have been recognised in Bollywood  and some of their names have been cemented in records as they have time and again received the same awards or even been called to receive the awards in different other avenues. With the special night of dance and awards and banquets, the red carpet welcome of Filmfare awards is a much awaited event every year.

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