On Indian cinema’s 104th anniversary, President Pranab Mukherjee honoured many eminent industry people with the prestigious 64th National Film Awards.

National Film Awards is the most coveted award conferred to the Indian film industry. It presents awards to the best performers and films from every region of the country. Films in different languages are awarded and thus the ceremony is on a nationwide scale.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that the function was to commemorate cinema which is religion of all religions in our nation. He further added that films like Sultan, Dangal and Baahubali reflect government’s ‘Make in India’ idea. 

64th National Film Awards saw a dominance of the regional cinema over Bollywood winning most of the prizes. “Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu and Konkani”, the six southern film industries won 18 awards. Also those from Manipur, Maharashtra, Assam and Bengal won awards.Akshay Kumar won the Best Actor award for "Rustom".

Malayalam actress Surabhi C.M. won the Best Actress award for "Minnaminungu - the Firefly". The Best Feature Film was won by Marathi film “Kasaav”. The Best Film on Social Issues was given to Bollywood film "Pink". Film director and actor K. Viswanath who received the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award. 

Many such awards were bestowed in different categories and special mentions.