The awards were postponed this year due to the Lok Sabha election
Winners of the long-delayed and much-awaited 66th national film awards are likely to be announced soon with the jury meeting and deliberations scheduled to start from August 7 onwards at New Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium.
On the other hand, though the viewings had been completed by the feature films jury, no deliberations had been done when the postponement was announced by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. Even after the elections, the meeting could not be convened because two members of the feature films jury were out of the country.
Every year the winners of the awards, organised and presented by the Director of Film Festivals, are announced in April and the presentation ceremony is held on the designated date, May 3, which is when India’s first feature film — Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra — is said to have had its theatrical release in 1913 at the Coronation Cinematography and Variety Hall, Girgaon.