#68thNationalFilmAwards: Suriya, Ajay Devgn adjudged Best Actors; Aparna Balamurali is the Best Actress

The most-anticipated 68th National Film Awards judged by a 10-member jury led by filmmaker Vipul Shah have been announced. Suriya and Ajay Devgn have been chosen as Best Actors for their performances in Soorarai Pottru and Tanhaji respectively, while Aparna Balamurali is adjudged as the Best Actress for her performance in Soorarai Pottru.

Fans of Suriya have been eagerly waiting for the prestigious announcement as they had pinned high hopes on the jury members for acknowledging one of the best performances of the star's career. 

Soorarai Pottru also bagged awards under Best Feature Film, Best Background Score and Best Screenplay categories. The film which had a direct release on Amazon Prime Video in 2020 was bankrolled by Suriya himself under his production house 2D Entertainment. The movie, which was the first big ticket film from Tamil to have a direct-OTT-release, opened to unanimous positive response from critics and movie lovers.

The project, which was based on the life of Air Deccan founder Captain GR Gopinath, has been directed by Sudha Kongara, who is now making its Bollywood version with Akshay Kumar. Suriya is playing a cameo in it, though makers are tight-lipped about the nature of the role he appears in.

On the other hand, Ajay Devgn-starrer Tanhaji, which was released in 2020 before the pandemic began, went on to become the highest grossing movie of the year. The period action film which set the cash registers ringing had Ajay as one of its producers, too. The movie also bagged an award under the Best Popular Film category as well.

With this award, Ajay now has three National Awards to his credit. The actor had earlier won the recognition twice for Zakhm and The Legend of Bhagat Singh in 1998 and 2002 respectively.