The first edition of the Critics' Choice Awards was held last week by the newly formed Film Critics Guild. The event witnessed an unusual gathering of film critics and members of the Hindi film industry under one roof. Films from eight languages were felicitated, with 'Andadhun' emerging as the biggest winner. The Sriram Raghavan thriller won Best Film, Best Director, Best Editor, and Best Writing awards.
Alia Bhatt received the Best Actor (Female) for 'Raazi' and Vineet Kumar Singh bagged the Best Actor (Male) for 'Mukkabaaz'. Surekha Sikri was given Best Supporting Actor (Female) for her role of a matriarch in Amit Sharma's 'Badhaai Ho' and Manoj Pahwa won Best Supporting Actor (Male) for 'Mulk'. 'Tumbbad', which premiered in the critics' week section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival last year too won multiple awards including Best Cinematography, Best Background Score, and Best Production Design.
India's first stunt woman Reshma Pathan was presented with the Extraordinary Achievement award by director Ramesh Sippy and scriptwriter Javed Akhtar for her contribution in movies like 'Sholay'. Other Best Film awards were presented to 'Lathe Joshi' (Marathi), 'Pariyerum Perumal' (Tamil), 'C/o Kancharapalem' (Telugu), 'Reva' (Gujarati), 'Pupa' (Bengali), 'Ondalla Eradalla' (Kannada), and 'Ee. Ma. Yau' (Malayalam). A joint venture of Film Critics Guild and Motion Content Group, the awards aims to “uplift some of the most underrated films which are often overshadowed by commercial mammoths.”
