59th NATIONAL FILM AWARDS: Onir, Vidya Balan, Ra.One and more

Photograph: Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images

It was an exciting and momentous day for the films and crews nominated to the National Film Awards 2011. Our heartiest congratulations to all winners!

Best Hindi Film: I AM (Onir)  
Best Feature Films (2 awards): Deool and Byari  
Best Director: Gurvinder Singh for Anhe Ghorey Da Daan   
Best Bengali Film: Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbo Na  
Best Marathi Film: Shaala  
Best Dialogue: Deool  
Best Actress: Vidya Balan, The Dirty Picture  
Best Actor: Girish Kulkarni for Deool


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PIRACY: A Crime in Controversy

When an anti-piracy law project was being introduced in France in 2009, police brigades took over a district in Paris that is well-known for its shops displaying heaps of pirate Indian DVDs for sale. Today it is the Protect IP Act's turn to be approved in the USA, an event that has been causing much virtual ink to be shed. Going with this sign of the times, the Hindi Cinema Blog cannot help but deeply ponder upon the issue of piracy with its different arguments and counter-arguments, which make it a profoundly complex issue that no one seems to have a current satisfactory solution to. Sadly indeed.

This post is not a sermon to those who recur to purchasing pirate products nor is it our purpose to be the devil's advocate. It is indeed unfortunate but nevertheless true that despite a wide variety in tastes and incomes, most Indian cinema viewers have unfortunately been at some point in the position of supporting piracy through one of the following actions:

- purchasing a DVD at a shop, thinking it is an original copy only to open it at home and discover it is a pirate,

- knowingly buying a pirate DVD at the local video shop

- burning a DVD for another Indian cinema enthusiast

- downloading a film from the Internet for free (some people download films from supposedly law-abiding sites only to find out they have downloaded a pirate copy, while others don't bother with piracy concerns and just want to obtain the film for free).

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I-VIEW South Asia in New York 2010

If South Asia is your pick, from visual arts to fashion, from music to cinema, from to politics to human rights... the Big Apple's I-VIEW FESTIVAL will cater to that and more!

Organized by Engendered, the film festival focuses on exploring gender, sexuality, culture and religion through South Asian cinema, offering a rich program of events for the glee of those wanting to delve deep into meaningful subjects, arts and fashion.

This year's edition will take place from September 18-26th in Manhattan and will start with a bang by opening with Duane Baughman's 'Bhutto'  (Sundance official selection) and acclaimed director Onir Anirban's ('My Brother Nikhil', 'Bas Ek Pal') most recent film, 'I Am', starring reputed actors who will attend the festival's inauguration together with other icons of modern South Asian cinema:

Juhi Chawla,

Sanjay Suri,

Purab Kohli,

Raima Sen,

Rahul Bose,

Arjun Mathur,

Rituparno Ghosh,

Vishal Bhardwaj,

Abhishek Chaubey,

Arshad Warsi,

Zeenat Aman

Rituparna Sengupta,

Sabrina Dhawan

Actress Konkona Sen Sharma will attend a QandA session for the festival's closing, presenting her film 'Mirch' with director Vinay Shukla and Raima Sen as well as her own directorial debut, 'Naam Karan'.

The film festival also dedicates a retrospective to Aparna Sen, who will be attending the event.

Other films in the programme include 'Love Sex aur Dhoka', 'Maqbool', 'Ishqiya' and 'President is Coming' among an excellent selection ranging from Bollywood to independent cinema, short films or documentaries. For more information on the program and tickets, click here.