Dadasaheb Awards are back with original “authentic awards”
Mumbai : Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Awards which has always been the highest prestigious award in Indian Cinema are back after three years. These awards are instituted by the Film Federation with 38 industry crafts affiliated to it. This time they have thought to return with “authentic awards”.
The basic idea behind “authentic awards” is they are the only credible awards. The chairperson of the academy, Ganesh Jain said that the academy was not able to conduct the awards due to “limitations”. And because of that many people have misused the name and organised many award ceremonies in the same name. He said, “We have been told that these people float big names in the market and generate sponsors for the awards. They are definitely not for a social cause. The stars and the people who were accepting these awards are unaware of the fact that they were not the real awards.”, accoridng to DNA.
It is also being said that this year the Academy will award Kapil Sharma, Juhi Chawla and Priyanka Chopra.
The president of the Western Indian Film Producers Association, Sangram Shirke said, it was his father Producer Gajanan Shirke, who was the main man in launching the Dadashaeb Phalke Academy Award in 1998.
President further added, “After my father expired in 1999, it was the veteran producer, Ram Gopal Gupta, who founded the academy in 2000 in association with several veterans in the industry including Federation chief Chandrashekhar, Pahlaj Nihalani, Govind Swaroop and Santosh Singh Jain.We also got on board some of the biggest stalwarts in the industry like Yash Chopra, BR Chopra and Shakti Samantha. We were keen on building awareness on Phalke since only the Central Government had an award in his name which was only for one person and the Maharashtra Government was doing it for Marathi cinema.
The major concern of Shirke was the awards are losing their credibility. On this, he said, “There are the Dadasaheb Film Foundation Awards and one helmed by another person, who branched out from our academy and set up his own event company. It is okay if all the awards co-exist, but this has led to chaos. Also, there is talk that some of these awards can be easily brought. Besides, everyone wants an award and that’s how some of them get sponsors and big names to back them,”
Dadasaheb’s grandson, Chandrashekhar Pusalkar, son of his daughter, Mansi Phalke said, “First of all, we feel sorry about the manner in which Dadasaheb Phalke’s name is being misused everywhere. Even when it concerns the Central Government awards, which are supposed to be the most credible awards, we haven’t been invited for a single award function in the past 46 years. They did not even bother to locate us. In that respect, the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy though it is a private academy, took the trouble of tracing us. They were also instrumental in renaming Film City as Dadasaheb Phalke Chitra Nagari.
Chandrashekhar says there are many types of awards being conducted in the last several years when the original awards were not being held. “There is a Foundation award besides a Dadasaheb Excellence awards and another award.Initially, we welcomed them but later learnt that all kinds of things were happening backstage like people purchasing awards. It is disappointing that Dadasaheb Phalke’s name has become a marketing commodity, being used by people with an intention of commercial gains,” he says.
