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It was punctuality with a capital P (a point worth noting considering
how it has almost become a style statement for many of Indian award
functions to start late). The show starting dot on time at Rangsharda's
banquet hall and what's more, all the stars reached the venue on
time. With the hall filled to capacity in no time, the passage seemed
to overflow with celebrities.
Besides officially announcing the nominations for the different
categories, the special contributors in the theater categories including
Achyut Vaze, Pradeep Velankar, Hemu Adhikari, Premanand Gajvi, Pratima
Kulkarni and Sachin Khedekar were felicitated at the event. In the
music category, Ashok Patki, Devki Pandit and Chadrashekhar Gokhle
were awarded with special prizes for their contribution to the Marathi
music.
Attendees included the board of governors members Jabbar Patel,
N Chandra, Kamlakar Sontake, Jayant Salgoankar and Dr Shrirang Adarkar,
the jury members- director Kanchan Nayak, cinematographer Harish
Joshi, novelist PL Mayekar, music director Ashok Patki and film
critique Sudhir Nandgoakar.
That besides throng of film artists including Ashok Saraf, Yatin
Karyekar, Dr Girish Oak, Ramesh Bhatkar, Reema Lagoo, Bharati Achrekar,
Nina Kulkarni, Suhas Joshi, Mohan Joshi, Mrinal Kulkarni, Sharvani
Pillai, Deepa Parab, Resham Tipnis, Nivedita Joshi-Saraf, Sachin
Khedekar and Tushar Dalvi made their presence felt at the awards.
Food was aplenty and the atmosphere was jubilant but underneath
all this one could feel a sense of despair. Although the Maharastra
government is pumping in the moolah (Rs 1.5 million per film) to
encourage the Marathi film industry to produce quality films, there
seems to be just a handful of movies worth mentioning and that was
reflected in the nominations. The often repeated titles included,
Not only Mrs Raut, Shwas, Anahat, Tarunya Chya latewar and
Yugpurush.
A point mentioned during the presentation was difficulty the Marathi
movie industry was facing in attracting newer talents. In a bid
to popularise Marathi cinema, Zee's Marathi entertainment arm has
tied up with YB Chavan Pratishthan for a film festival. Starting
2 February, the five nominated films for Alpha Gaurav 2004 will
be showcased at YB Chavan centre in Mumbai.
The five-day movie fest will conclude with the awards night on
8 February. This year, Alpha Gaurav has constituted 16 categories
from the Marathi film industry, 10 categories from Marathi theatre
and five categories from Marathi music industry. The Alpha Gaurav
will also honour the winners from the state intercollegiate one
act play "ekankika" competition. Besides that the award
ceremony will also fete renowned personalities from film and theatre
for the lifetime achievement awards.
The award ceremony will be telecast on the channel at a later date.
Last year's awards telecast received a channel share of 22 per cent
among all entertainment channels in the general entertainment category
in Maharastra and over 80 per cent amongst the Marathi channels
receiving 10.3 TVR. Channel officials seem confident of upping those
figures this year. Wish the same could be said about the actual
state of Marathi regional cinema.
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