NEW DELHI: Films from the South have romped in major awards at the 55th National Awards, but Hindi cinema dominated the 55th National Film Awards with as many as 17 honours.

While Priyadarshan's offbeat Tamil film Kanchivaram walked away with the best feature film, director Adoor Gopalakrishnan was adjudged the best director for Malayalam film Naalu Pennungal.

Malayalam films, in fact, won six awards, Tamil films five awards, and Kannada, English, Marathi and Bengali films bagged two honours each.

Shah Rukh Khan starrer Chak De! India got the award for Best Popular film providing wholesome entertainment, while Frozen by Shivajee Chandrabhushan shot in Ladakh received the Indira Gandhi Award for the Best First film of a Director.

The Nargis Dutt award for best feature film on national integration went to the Hindi film Dharm by Bhavna Talwar. Taare Zameen Par, by producer-director Aamir Khan, received three awards - the best film on family welfare, male playback singer Shankar Mahadevan for the song Meri Maa , and the best lyric award for Prasoon Joshi.

Prakash Raj of Kanchivaram and Umashree of Gulabi Talkies (directed by Girish Kasarvalli) received the best artiste awards in the male and female category, while Sharad Goekar from the Marathi film Tingya got the best child actor award. Darshan Jariwala in Gandhi My Father and Shefali Shah in the English film The Last Lear got the best supporting artiste awards.

Hindi film Jab We Met won awards for best female singer Shreya Ghoshal and the choreography award for Yeh Ishk Hai.

Gandhi My Father, directed by Feroz Abbas Khan and produced by Anil Kapoor, also received the Special Jury Award and the best screenplay award for the director.

Sushil Rajpal's Hindi film Antardwandwa got the award for best film on social issues such as women and child welfare. The film dealt with the marriages for sale racket. Foto by Virendra Saini in Hindi for the Children's Film Society, India, was awarded the best children film award while Inimey Naangathaan in Tamil by S venky Baboo got the best animation film award.

Frozen also received the award for best cinematography for Shanker Raman, while the editing award went to Naalu Pennungal. The Shah Rukh Khan starrer Om Shanti Om also received the award for art director for Sabu Cyril.

While Sai Paranjpye headed the 14-member jury, Ashoke Viswanathan was chairman of the six-member non-feature film jury and author Namita Gokhale headed the writing jury.