Visakhapatnam: The Nandi award winners from the acclaimed movie Minugurulu were felicitated at the Vuda children’s theatre here on Thursday on the occasion of Ugadi. The movie won seven awards in various categories for 2012. The awards were announced in March. It was judged second best feature film and its director Ayodhya Kumar Krishnamsetty was rated best debutant director and best story writer. Renowned actor Ashish Vidhyarthi bagged the award for best character artiste while actress Rusini, Deepk Saroj won best child actress and actor respectively. R.C.M. Raju walked away with the best male dubbing artiste award.
Film director Chandra Siddhartha was the chief guest while Vuda vice-chairman Dr T. Babu Rao Naidu and social activist Bolisetty Satyanarayana were the guest of honour. The guests praised the efforts of the Minugurulu team for bringing out such a wonderful social message through the movie. Ashish Vidhyarthi who was in the city for the event said, “I did not have much idea about the film makers of the city, but I could not stop myself when I heard the story of the film. I am really proud to be part of such a movie and happy to win the award.”
The film director Ayodhya Kumar Krishnamsetty said making the movie commercially viable was a struggle due to various reasons such as lack of support from the government and theatres. “However these awards come as great encouragement to move ahead,” he said. He also pointed out about the Facebook post of the actress Jayasudha Kapoor about Minugurulu where she stated that “Minugurulu was most underrated film of 2012. It’s sad how exceptional cinema goes unnoticed in commercial wars. I’m glad Nandi awards has bestowed this brilliant film with seven honours. Given a chance and good script I would consider it as a feather on my cap to work with the director of Minugurulu, Ayodhya Kumar Krishnamsetty and I take immense pride in making this statement.”
