IIFA Utsavam 2017 day 2: Janatha Garage, Kirik Party, U-turn win top awards

The second day of IIFA Utsavam 2017 saw a bevy of stars from Telugu and Kannada cinema gracing the event in Hyderabad to honour the best of 2016. In the Telugu section, it was NTR starrer Janatha Garage’s show all the way and the film won awards including Best Film, Best Actor (NTR), Best Director (Koratala Siva), Best Music Director (Devi Sri Prasad), Best Lyricist (Ram Jogayya Sastry) and Best Playback Singer Female (Geetha Madhuri).

Soon after winning the award, NTR surprised everyone by inviting the other nominees to share the stage with him. “I consider this as a collective victory of all the nominees this year and I would like to share stage with them right now,” NTR said, adding, “I’ll always be thankful to Koratala Shiva for Janatha Garage and it’s going nothing to do with its box-office result. Through the film, Koratala Shiva taught me how important it is to take care of nature and the environment around us and I’ll always remember the lessons.”

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[caption id=“attachment_3359226” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Kirik Party and Janatha Garage wins top honours. Images from Twitter.[/caption]

When Rana Daggubati, one of the emcees at the event apart from Nani, asked him who his favourite actors are, NTR said that although he doesn’t have one favourite actor, he likes different aspects in different actors. “I could never imagine that you (Rana) will emote so much through your voice until I saw Baahubali. Nani is one of the best actors in the industry today and Mahesh Babu is the most handsome actor in Telugu cinema,” NTR said.

On the other hand, Samantha, who won the Best Actress award for her performance in A…Aa, said, “I thank Trivikram Srinivas for giving me such a beautiful role which had a lot of depth. I dedicate this award to all the wonderful filmmakers who are writing strong roles for women. Please give us a chance!”

The most emotional of all the speeches was, however, that of Priyadarshi who was visibly overwhelmed after bagging the award for Best Comedian for Pellichoopulu. Incidentally, it was the only award that the film won. “This award gives me hope more than anything else and I dedicate this to my mother who took care of us even when the going got tough. I owe a lot to my director Tharun Bhascker who saw an actor in me when others didn’t,” Priyadarshi said.

Among others, Anupama Parameshwaran won the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in Premam; Allu Arjun won the Best Supporting Actor award for Rudhramadevi; and Jagapathi Babu won the Best Villain award for Nannaku Prematho.

Veteran director K Raghavendra Rao was felicitated with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to cinema.

When Nagarjuna, who stated that the veteran filmmaker has been a father figure to him, bestowed him with the award, K Raghavendra Rao said, “I’m honoured to receive this award from my Annamayya (Nagarjuna). A lot of people, including my family, actors and technicians, have supported me no matter what genre I’ve done. I’m also indebted to all the actresses I’ve worked with and thank you for bearing the pain of all the fruits and flowers in my films.”

On the other hand, it was a completely different story in for Kannada cinema. In an year which saw the likes of U Turn, Godhi Banna Sadharna Mykattu, Killing Veerappan, Kirik Party among other acclaimed films, the awards ceremony was completely dominated by Kirik Party. At one point, it even made some people wonder if Rakshit Shetty, who produced, wrote the script and played the role in the film, should have just stayed on stage to collect all the awards.

Kirik Party won the IIFA Awards for Best Film, Best Actor (Rakshit Shetty), Best Music Director (B Ajaneesh Loknath), Best Playback Singer Male (Vijay Prakash), Best Lyrics, Best Choreographer among few others.

Pawan Kumar’s acclaimed thriller U Turn won the awards for Best Story and Best Direction. “I’m thrilled that we were able to bring a positive change through this film. The whole idea was based on fixing the problem with the double road flyover in Bangalore and soon after the film’s release, the authorities took up the issue and solved it,” Pawan Kumar said.

Parul Yadav won the Best Actress Award for her role in Killing Veerappan, whereas Vasishta N Simha won the Best Villain award for Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu.

Veteran filmmaker, actor and producer Dwarakish was bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement award for his contribution to cinema.

Rana and Nani hosted the awards ceremony for the Telugu section, whereas Akul Balaji and Meghana Gaonkar did the honours for the Kannada section. The event also saw performances by Akhil Akkineni and Sai Dharam Tej. The duo danced for a medley of hit tracks from Nagarjuna and Chiranjeevi’s career and in the end, even made Nagarjuna, Samantha and Shriya Saran groove with them. Raashi Khanna, Raai Laxmi, Ritika Singh, Rachita Ram and Vishnuvardhan also performed at the event.

Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Ritika Singh, Akshara Haasan, Rakul, Pragya Jaiswal, Pranitha Subhash, Rashmika, Shraddha Srinath, Nidhi Subbaih, Urvashi Rautela, Aditi Rao Hydari, Gunasekhar, Krish, Adah Sharma, Sundeep Kishan, Vijay Deverakonda and Ritu Varma were some of the celebrities who graced the event on day two of the IIFA Utsavam 2017, where once again people were shocked to see films from 2015, like Rudhramadevi and Kanche, winning awards.