The 68th National Awards for movies released in the year 2020 are scheduled to be announced on July 22 at 4 PM and the countdown has already begun. As we are mere hours away from the announcement of the winners, it becomes important to note that the year itself was not the best one for cinema as a whole. It was the year the COVID19 pandemic struck the world, putting it into chaos and lockdown.
Even here in India, theatres remained closed for a considerable period, with many productions halted. We saw many OTT releases that year although some small-budget films saw theatrical releases once they reopened. However, no big filmmaker took the risk of releasing their film on the big screen due to fears of low footfall.
Considering all the cons and the inconveniences that the movie industry faced in 2020, let us revisit some Tamil films of that year that have chances of bagging awards.
The Jyothika-starrer Ponmaal Arha, Keerthi Suresh’s Penguin, Suriya’s Soorai Pottru, Ka Pae Ranasingham starring Aishwarya Rajesh, RJ Balaji’s Mookitthi Amman were released directly on OTT platforms. These films have a chance at the awards. Apart from these films, Kanni Madam directed by Gunasithir actor Bose Venkat is also in consideration.
Suriya’s Soorai Pottru was based on the life of entrepreneur GR Gopinath, who started Deccan Airline for the low-cost air ticket system. In the film directed by Sudha Kongara, Suriya’s performance was greatly acclaimed, as was the story, screenplay, direction and music.
P Virumaandi’s directorial debut Ka Pae Ranasingham is similarly based on a true story and follows a poor woman who strives to bring her deceased husband’s body back to India from Dubai, battling the odds of political agenda, corruption and a treacherous bureaucracy that stands in her way. These are likely to have attracted the attention of the selectors.
There are expectations from Suriya, Aishwariya Rajesh and director Sudha Kongara. We will get to know soon enough.
