The awards opened with Prasoon Joshi, ad-man and CBFC Chairman being welcomed on the dais for a riveting conversation reflecting upon his challenges in his current role. The evening then moved towards recognizing excellence in new age cinema and honouring the personalities who gave their best in 2017. Amit V Masurkar took home the first News18 REEL Movie Awards for Best Director for Newton, Irrfan Khan was recognised for his work in the movie Hindi Medium under the Best Actor (Male) category, while a surprised Ratna Pathak Shah accepted the Best Actor (Female) award for her role in Lipstick Under My Burkha.
On accepting the award, Ratna shared, `I am surprised that a 60-year old artist was picked for the award since it was quite the chance that the jury took and I am happy that they did.` The actor dedicated her award to the team of Lipstick Under My Burkha.
The jury presented an award for the Breakthrough Actor to none-other-than Rajkummar Rao. The elated star said, `2017 was a great year for cinema and I hope it continues. I am so happy that the dream I had seen as a young boy sitting in Gurgaon has come true. I want to thank the audience for appreciating such cinema and we will continue to keep bringing excellent content for them.`
Mukti Bhawan won the first News18 REEL Movie Awards for Best Film and director Shubhashish Bhutiani, along with his team accepted the awards and shared, `I stayed in a room with my father in preparation for the film, pretty much taking a journey like the protagonist in a film, in order to make this movie happen. Winning the award is truly an honour and a privilege.`
Meher Vij was awarded the Best Supporting Actor (Female) for the movie Secret Superstar, while Pankaj Tripathi won the award for Newton in the Best Supporting Actor (Male) category.
The awards concluded with a riveting panel discussion on digital content creation, moderated by Network18 Digital CEO Manish Maheshwari, and with Saurabh Shukla, Sudhir Mishra, Richa Chadha, Rahul Bhat and Dhawal Gusain taking the dais as panelists. The event was live-streamed on Jio TV.
WINNERS LIST:
Best Film: Mukti Bhawan
Breakthrough Actor: Rajkummar Rao
Best Actor (Female): Ratna Pathak Shah - Lipstick Under My Burkha
Best Actor (Male): Irrfan Khan - Hindi Medium
Best Director: Amit Masurkar - Newton
Best Supporting Actor (Female): Meher Vij - Secret Superstar
Best Supporting Actor (Male): Pankaj Tripathi - Newton
Best Screenplay: Mukti Bhawan
Best Dialogues: Amitosh Nagpal - Hindi Medium
Best Web Series: TVF's Bachelor Season 2
Best Music: Tumhari Sulu
Best Playback Singer (Female): Meghna Mishra - Secret Superstar
Best Playback Singer (Male): Guru Randhawa - Tumhari Sulu
Best Cinematography: Sirsha Ray - A Death In The Gunj
Best Editing: Shweta Venkat - Newton
Best Production Design: Parul Sondh - Daddy
Best Sound: Anish John - Trapped