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Hello everybody!!!

This year’s Blue Notebook truly reflects the spirit of cinema. What an year 2012 was. Incredible, to say the least. We saw alternate cinema getting a strong ground in mainstream cinema, we saw indie doing so well and we saw emergence of actors, who till now were part of the crowd nobody remembered. What an year…

Three technical Categories… Best Art Direction. This was supposed to be tricky as the nominations covered a range rarely seen before. India won. The sleepy urban Kolkata and fiery raw rural Wasseypur. Yes… the honors goes to Kahaani and Gangs Of Wasseypur. The second technical category was Best Editing. Frankly, we found that there was hardly any contest. The most well edited movie of the year was Kahaani. Last and perhaps our favourite – Best Music. Vicky Donor seemed to lead the chart till the last morning and we saw an Usain Bolt in Cocktail who grabbed the award in the last moment with a small… real small difference.

We always argue that Bollywood, more than often, lack good stories. 2012 will be remembered as an exception. We had great stories. Kahaani, story of a pregnant women takes entire nation hostage with love, affection and care. Who would have thought that we will have a thriller there, I mean a thriller of that sort. However, the Best Story was an equally mesmerizing story of a couple, a doctor and a sperm donor. Chadhdhaji’s Vicky Donor turned out to be real Aryaputra.

National awards are dominated by regional cinema. Here goes our little tribute. Best Regional Language Film – Kaksparsh which won a close battle with Eega. The way we see cinema within India, we explore beyond borders as well. Along with blockbusters, we had  a small Kenyan movie as well. The Best Foreign Language Film was a contest between two films. The Dark Knight Rises lost. Argo won.

Coming back to mainstream…

Most compelling performances would include likes of Manoj Bajpayee, Tigmanshu Dhulia and Richa Chaddha in Gangs Of Wasseypur, Irrfan Khan in Paan Singh Tomar, Vidya Balan in Kahaani, Anjali Patil in Chakravyuh and Ranbeer Kapoor in Barfi. Contest was tough. Votes were split and there were many close calls. The Best Actor Male for 2012 was Irrfan Khan closely defeating Tigmanshu Dhulia. From Votes point of view, in the Best Actor Female category, we had a clear winner… Vidya Balan. Going by her records in Blue Notebook, we will have to think about giving her Lifetime Achievement Award soon. Chronic Offender.

Best Director! The winner has fought against odds. Over the time he has become symbol of rebellion in Hindi Cinema. People say he is the posterboy of Indian Indie. The award goes to Anurag Kashyap. However, it’s worth mentioning that it was a close call between Anurag, Dibakar and Sujoy. Brilliant cinema. Brilliant filmmakers.

Now the most awaited one. What was the best film of 2012. Its difficult to point out one winner. We have two joint winners. A tie shows the intensity of contest. The Best Film of 2012 are Gangs Of Wasseypur and Paan Singh Tomar. Rural India swept the country off its feet.

On that note, lets hope that 2013 will raise the mark.

Love

Sujoy Ghosh