Anubhav Sinha was, in his own words, “chilling in the hills” when the National film awards were announced earlier this week. Nitesh Tiwari’s Chhichhore beat Sinha’s far-superior Article 15 for the best Hindi film award.
And now at Filmfare,Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad wins best film. But not a director. How does that work?
Anubhav is not brooding over that. He says, “The Filmfare awards for Thappad mean so much to me. It is not a mainstream film in the strict sense of the term and it still did so well at the box office which was heartening enough. And now all these Filmfare awards in the Popular category and not in the ‘Critics Choice’. Awesome. We made the film we completely believed in and these 360-degree rewards couldn’t feel better.”
Virtual awards have their own residual rewards. Only the deserving have received Filmfare awards this year. And there is a reason for it. No one was asked to dance. There was no dancing this year. No star could arm-twist the organizers threatening that the dancing would happen only in exchange for an award.
So this time it is time for us, and not the stars, to dance with joy at the Fairplay. Of course, Taapsee Pannu thoroughly deserved her award Thappad. She is as ever brilliant.
When I congratulated her she said, “I think this movie had a lot of people wishing some wonderful things. It touched so many so deeply that Thappad ended up making it big at the awards. The people who were the backbone of the film. And it won the best film. Nothing tops that. Filmmaking is all about team spirit. No team,no movie.”
I joked that soon she would have no place for her trophies in her living room. Taapsee replied, “I don’t keep them there. I have a separate box that I keep my trophies in. Away from my and everyone’s sight. I don’t want to forget living my life normally and looking at the trophies staring at me all the time and building performance pressure. So I keep them in my own little treasure box.”
Incidentally, Tillotama Shome who won the Critics’ award for best actress in Sir, shares a newly-formed bonding with Taapsee.
Explains Taapsee, “I just came across her tweet and offered to help as she wanted platelets of the same blood group as mine. Simple.”
