Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Unfair! Bollywood says Awards nominations lowers Filmfare rep

While the Filmfare awards committee may have made amends with Sonu Nigam and credited him for Main Hoon Na, but the industry (including the magazine staffers) have been lampooning the nominations. We received two mails – one from a journalist and industry insider and another from a Times group staffer on the nominations:

1. They are poorly thought of, amateurish and incomplete Most of them revolve
around five-six films completely ignoring the 130-odd films that released in
2004

2. If they are popular awards, why has Aishwarya Rai been nominated for 'Raincoat' which was a flop and her performance was panned?
3. The nominations show some bias towards the Yashraj and SRK camp!
4. Some categories have five nominations, others have six. Shouldn’t there be a
standard?
5. Cult films like Dhoom which saw brilliant performances and direction get bad treatment at these awards
6. Is there no lyricist in India other than Javed Akhtar? Five nominations for Javed Akhtar of which three are for Veer-Zaara!!
7. Some names appear to have been added just to ensure that all ‘camps’ are covered.


However, we would like to add here that there are some cribs about every awards event each year. But with the stakes being so high and big monies from sponsorships (in the region of Rs 6-8 crore), the least the organisers can do is ensure a glitch-free event.

Also, the awards are NOT organised by an outside events company, but 360 degrees, which is part of the Times group and headed by A N Parigi who is also CEO of Radio Mirchi. While we were told that the BBC jv
was reluctant to have Filmfare staffers associated with a Manikchand-sponsored event, there are enough film resources within the Times empire in Bombay who are clued into films – Omar Qureshi, Jitesh Pillai and
several others -- who could have been consulted.

What upsets us most is that at least a couple of Bollywood biggies told us that if awards nominations lower the rep of the magazine, which is known for scandal-free content. In fact actor Aamir Khan has boycotted the event for many years because he believes that film magazines shouldn't be conducting cine awards.