The National Film Award for Best Debut Film of a Director is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the National Film Development Corporation of India. It is one of several awards presented for non-feature films and awarded with Golden Lotus (Swarna Kamal).
The award was instituted in 1989, at 37th National Film Awards and awarded annually for films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages. Since the 70th National Film Awards, the name was changed to "Best Debut Film of a Director" and was changed the status from Silver Lotus to Golden Lotus. Also, the director is alone eligible for the award since this edition.
Winners
Award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus) and cash prize. Following are the award winners over the years:
Indicates a joint award for that year
1992–present List of award recipients, showing the year, film(s), language(s), producer(s) and director(s) Year Film(s) Language(s) Producer(s) Director(s) 1991 Kamlabai Marathi and HindiReena Mohan Reena Mohan 1992 Knock-Out Tamil B. Lenin B. Lenin 1993 Bazar Sitaram Hindi Neena Gupta for Films Division Neena Gupta 1994 A Little War Hindi FTII Atanu Biswas 1995 All Alone If Need Be English Amulya Kakati Ranjit Das 1996 Yeh Woh Sahar To Nahin Hindi FTII Sudhakar Rao 1997 Mizhavu – A Silent Drum Beat English P. D. Raphel K. R. Subhash 1998 Repentance Malayalam Mohan Agashe for Films Division Rajeev Raj 1999 Deivangal Padiyirangumbol(When Gods Depart) Tamil Pradeep Kumar Pradeep Kumar 2000 Meena Jha Hindi Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute Anjalika Sharma 2001 Diary of a Housewife Malayalam Asha Joseph and Vinod Sukumaran Vinod Sukumaran 2002 Paramapatham Tamil Film and Television Institute of Tamil Nadu Prabhu Radhakrishnan Beyond or Within English P. T. M. Payyoli Vinod Mankara 2003 An Encounter with a Life Living Hindi and English Vinu Abraham Suja 2004 Ek Sagar Kinaree... A Seaside Story Marathi and English Gomantak Marathi AcademyLaxmikant Shetgaonkar 2005 John and Jane English Ashim Ahluwalia Ashim Ahluwalia 2006 Andhiyum Malayalam N. Dinesh Rajkumar Jacob Verghese 2007 Lal Juto Bengali Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute Shweta Merchant 2008 Vitthal Marathi Vinoo Choliparambil and Manu Pushpendran Vinoo Choliparambil 2009 Vaishnav Jan Toh Hindi FTII Kaushal Oza Ekti Kaktaliyo Golpo Bengali FTII Tathagata Singha 2010 Pistulya Marathi and Telugu Nagraj Manjule Nagraj Manjule 2011 The Silent Poet Meitei Borun Thokchom Borun Thokchom 2012 Eka Gachha Eka Manisa Eka Samudra Oriya Veenu Bhushan Vaid Lipika Singh Darai 2013 Kanyaka Malayalam Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute Christo Tomy 2014 Goonga PehelwanHindi and English Drishti Media Mit Jani, Prateek Gupta and Vivek Chaudhary 2015 Daaravtha Marathi Nishantroy Bombarde Nishantroy Bombarde 2016 Soz...A Ballad of Maladies Hindi, Kashmiri and English Rajiv Mehrotra Tushar Madhav 2017 Water Baby Konkani Varun Shah Pia Shah 2018 Feluda: 50 Years of Ray's Detective Bengali Sagnik Chatterjee Sagnik Chatterjee 2019 Khisa Marathi Santosh Maithani Raj Pritam More 2020 Pariah Marathi and Hindi MIT School of Film & Television Vishesh Iyer 2021 PaanchikaGujarati Shreya Kapadiya Ankit Kothari
2022–present Since the 70th National Film Awards, director alone is awarded. List of award films, showing the year (award ceremony), language(s) and director(s) Year Film(s) Language(s) Director(s) 2022 Madhyantara Kannada Basti Dinesh Shenoy 2023 Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw Mizo Shilpika Bordoloi 2024 AngenSanthaliRavi Raj Murmu Jamshedpur-based filmmaker wins Nat’l Film Award for best debut director
References
External links Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India National Film Awards Archives