The HIndie Awards 2015: Final Nominees List

The First Official

HIndie Awards

 

After a grueling 365 days and more, I've completed the task of watching as many movies as I could in the best of conditions to present to you the main ballot of nominees for this year's HIndie (Hindi Independent) film awards.

There's a lot of changes in the nomination lists to discuss. A lot about the movies that might have been awesome that I just missed. And about the nominees in question. 

Now just cause it's called the HIndie Awards, it does not mean that the films nominated in question will be Independent films or for that matter Underdog films. It's just a word I want to use for my awards, and its a cool word. 

This year in Hindi cinema, has seen quite a lot of bad. What I hate though is when an audience will cry about the dredge that Bollywood churns out, but never look at the good. 

They'll complain on the Happy New Year's, Jai Ho's and Bang Bang's that they saw, but never remember the Aankhon Dekhi's, Miss Lovelies and Highway's that they missed. 

There's such good films that I maybe felt a bit too generous, thus I created a new system of awards in lieu of the Golden Globes. This now allows me to nominate fourteen movies in most categories including now even screenplay (a new addition). Along with a bevy of technical awards such as for VFX, costume, production and ensemble acting.

Maybe I'm becoming like the Indian film awards I despise so much. 

Granted once again this year most are getting it right with the wins; Haider picking up quite an amount of trophies. 

But my problem is with the nominations and the extra awards they hand out. A recent award show for example gave awards for each genre and then on top of that for overall best and also tertiary awards for fashion and box office. 

So much so that undeserving people like Sonam Kapoor (Khoobsurat), Jacqueline Fernandez (Fashion) and Shah Rukh Khan (Happy New Year) won awards. 

I have problems with too many dance numbers and bad comedy but more so with the nominations and giving out of awards at this show. 

You could also accuse me of doing that here, but I'm trying my best to give awards to deserving films. 

Of course in my opinion.

So new additions: VFX, Ensemble and more importantly a divided screenplay award between Drama and Comedy/Musical instead of Adapted and Original. 

Once again all these apart from the technical awards will be about 5-7 nominees. 

Speaking of which. 

At one point I really felt that this divide and more nominees experiment was a flop. In fact I'm still not convinced. 

I'll explain though, after I unveil the nominees list. 

Best Motion Picture (Drama)	Best Motion Picture (Comedy/Musical)
Highway	Queen
Miss Lovely	Filmistaan
Haider	Aankhon Dekhi
Hawaa Hawaai	Dedh Ishqiya
Ugly	PK
Citylights	Hasee Toh Phasee
Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Finding Fanny
Best Director	Best Cinematography
Anurag Kashyap-Ugly	Finding Fanny
Vishal Bhardwaj-Haider	Miss Lovely
Imtiaz Ali-Highway	Dedh Ishqiya
Vikas Bahl-Queen	Haider
Rajat Kapoor-Aankhon Dekhi	Ugly
Abhishek Chaubey-Dedh Ishqiya	Highway
Ashim Ahluwalia-Miss Lovely	Citylights
Best Screenplay (Drama)	Best Screenplay (Comedy/Musical)
Haider	Dedh Ishqiya
Highway	Finding Fanny
Ugly	Filmistaan
Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Queen
Miss Lovely	Aankhon Dekhi
Best Actor in A Leading Role Drama (Male)	Best Actor in A Leading Role Comedy/Musical (Male)
Randeep Hooda-Highway	Naseeruddin Shah-Dedh Ishqiya
Vijay Raaz-Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Arshad Warsi-Dedh Ishqiya
Shahid Kapur-Haider	Sharib Hashmi-Filmistaan
Partho Gupte-Hawaa Hawaai	Sanjay Mishra-Aankhon Dekhi
Purab Kohli-Jal	Naseeruddin Shah-Finding Fanny
Nawazuddin Siddiqui-Miss Lovely	Aamir Khan-PK
Rajkumar Rao-Citylights
Best Actor in A Leading Role Drama (Female)	Best Actor in A Leading Role Comedy/Musical (Female)
Priyanka Chopra-Mary Kom	Vidya Balan-Bobby Jasoos
Rani Mukherjee-Mardaani	Parineeti Chopra-Hasee Toh Phasee
Alia Bhatt-Highway	Madhuri Dixit-Dedh Ishqiya
Patralekha-Citylights	Kangana Ranaut-Queen
Tejaswini Kolhapure-Ugly	Deepika Padukone-Finding Fanny
Best Actor in A Supporting Role Drama (Male)	Best Actor in A Supporting Role Comedy/Musical (Male)
Vineet Kumar Singh-Ugly	Vijay Raaz-Dedh Ishqiya
Manu Rishi-Kya Dilli, Kya Lahore	Rajat Kapoor-Aankhon Dekhi
Anil George-Miss Lovely	Inaamulhaq-Filmistaan
Girish Kulkarni-Ugly	Rajkumar Rao-Queen
Tahir Raj Bashin-Mardaani	Pankaj Kapur-Finding Fanny
Manav Kaul-Citylights	Anil Mange-Hasee Toh Phasee
K K Menon-Haider	Gopal Dutt-Filmistaan
Best Actor in A Supporting Role Drama (Female)	Best Actor in A Supporting Role Comedy/Musical (Female)
Neha Joshi-Hawaa Hawaai	Lisa Haydon-Queen
Tannishtha Chatterjee-Jal	Anushka Sharma-PK
Tabu-Haider	Seema Pahwa-Aankhon Dekhi
Shraddha Kapoor-Haider	Huma Qureshi-Dedh Ishqiya
Niharika Singh-Miss Lovely	Dimple  Kapadia-Finding Fanny
	Kalki Koechlin-Happy Ending
Best Breakthrough Actor (Male)	Best Breakthrough Actor (Female)
Best VFX	Best Ensemble
Best Production Design	Best Costume Design
Best Editing	Best Documentary
Best Soundtrack	Best Score
Ek Villain	Dedh Ishqiya
Highway	Ugly
Haider	Haider
Queen	Finding Fanny
Dedh Ishqiya	Miss Lovely

A few things as I said to clarify. 

Despite being a supporting role in a film just full of them, I decided to bump Tejaswini Kolhapure to leading for Ugly. This is because there was a lack of a fifth nominee in that list that felt viable, I could have pushed Parineeti Chopra (Daawat E Ishq) or Alia Bhatt (2 States/Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania) but their performances weren't that great to be warranted and for that matter they're already nominated elsewhere. 

The technical awards will come first. These are the awards with no nominees (Expect for the breakthrough performances). 

I hate that I couldn't balance nominees to seven or five, so for screenplay, direction and movie I forced myself to get a balance equation between comedy/musical and drama. 

Once again the big rule pertaining to performance awards. All the leading awards will have their own post (same with supporting), the first set will depend on which side has the best award. 

Example

If Randeep Hooda wins the leading drama award and he is better than leading drama (female), leading comedy/musical (male) and leading comedy/musical (female) say Kangana Ranaut. 

Then drama goes after comedy/musical. 

Separately if Kangana is better than Naseeruddin Shah, then Kangana goes last. 

As the last is mostly the respected one in the awards show. 

Anyways, you'll see one you see the posts. 

If there's anything more, I'll state it on the separate posts.

Also there's a few films I didn't see, so here's the list;

Suleimani Keeda: A slacker comedy, about film writers. This would have resonated so much with me. 

Rang Rasiya: A period romantic drama based on the life and paintings of Raja Ravi Verma. Randeep Hooda plays the titular character, and is supposedly brilliant. 

Children of War: Couldn't find a good print for this harrowing take on the Bangladesh liberation war. 

Titil (Unreleased) and Liar's Dice (Unreleased)

So that's it. 

The next time we meet, it will be for the technical awards. Also we wont meet very soon, I need a few weeks to settle down and also rewatch these films, so hopefully by February it's be HIndie Awards time (and in March-April it will be Underdog Awards time).

Up next: a stunning technical spectacle, a short but sweet tale of love and camaraderie and a top notch examination on India's B-Grade cinema...the Technical Section of the HIndie Awards

'Nuff Said

Aneesh Raikundalia