Priyadarshan recently won the National Award for best movie with his movie Kanchivaram that was shot in Tamil. Now many of us will be shocked to know that not only is this the first National Award that the director has won but it also happens to be his first award ever. That is particularly surprising considering the fact that he has been around for 25 years and has made films that audiences have loved and appreciated.

His next big release De Dana Dan starring Akshay Kumar will get lined up for release soon. The director has tried out various genres of cinema but found success with comedies. Even in his last attempt at serious cinema with the movie, Billu was a failure. Sabu Cyril got the award for the Best Art Direction for the same movie.

However, Priyadarshan missed the award for best director, which went to Adoor Gopalkrishnan. The award for the best actor was fetched by Prakash raj for his performance in the movie Kanchivaram. This becomes his second national award as earlier also, he had won the award in the best supporting actor category for the movie Iruvar. However, Sheetal Talwar who produced the movie Dharm feels that the performance given by Pankaj Kapur in the movie was more subtle and intense.

The other movies that were there in the race included Chak De India, Taare Zameen Par and Gandhi My Father. All exceptional movies but guess there was a movie better than these on that day. Taare Zameen Par however got a consolation prize when it won the best Hindi film award.