Black sweeps Apsara Awards

Mumbai: With the film awards season in full swing, another celebration came knocking at tinseltown.

With the film industry in full attendance, the 2^nd Apsara Film and Television Awards were handed out on Saturday evening.

Most of them had their own favourites that they wanted to cheer for. Actor Shreyas Talpade of Iqbal fame says, "I am only going to cheer for Mr Bachchan because he is god and god is the best."

Expressing his loyalty to Bluffmaster co-star, Ritesh Deshmukh said, "I am here to cheer for Abhishek."

Filmmaker Pahlaj Nihalani, who has churned out hits like the 1993 Aankhen, says, "Amitabh Bachchan is the best and Black is the best movie. I hope they win."

There were of course others who chose to be rather diplomatic when it came to expressing loyalties. "I think we should go with the jury, Producer Boney Kapoor said. Others like filmmaker Ramesh Sippy said, "Do I need to tell you? Don't you already know?"

But there were certain others who were quite clueless about the whole thing. "I don't know, who are the nominees? I am here to just enjoy the function," confessed Dino Morea.

And once the trophies were handed out to winners, there was little that they could do to contain their excitement.

Filmmaker Pradeep Sarkar, of Parineeta fame, says, "A debut award at 51. der aaye, durust aaye. I thank Vidhu Vinod Chopra for this."

Black was certainly the most popular film of the evening, winning as many as five awards, including one for its leading lady.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Parineeta, which was earlier leading

the race with 14 nominations, won for its heroine Vidya Balan the

outstanding debut award while its director Pradeep Sarkar bagged the

outstanding debut in Hindi film award.

Subarna Roy Chuadhari has also won the best costume design award for the film.

Last year's successful movie Bunty Aur Babli won for Gulzar the

best lyricist award for the song Kajra Re for which Alisha Chinai

bagged the best female singer award and Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy were

adjudged best music directors for the same film.

Vaibhavi Merchant won the award for best choreogrophy for Kajra Re. Abhishek Bachchan won the award for the best actor in a supporting

role for Yuva. The award was received on his behalf by filmmaker

Karan Johar.

The best male playback singer award was received by Kunal Ganjawala for his song Bheege Honth Tere from the film Murder. The best dialogue award went to Aditya Chopra for Veer Zaara and the best editing award was taken by Nipun Gupta for Sarkar.

Nagesh Kukunoor won the award for best story for film Iqbal. Evergreen hero Dev Anand was honoured for his outstanding contribution to cinema.

The 83-year-old actor was presented the award by Sridevi, film maker B R Chopra was also honoured with the outstanding contribution to cinema award which was received by his son Ravi Chopra on his behalf.