National Film Award For Best Arts/Cultural Film - Winners

For a perceptive exploration of the relationship between the life and art of the warli tribals.

For its well researched treatment and the artistry and imagination employed in bringing an aspect of our great heritage into focus.

For its excellent visual treatment of a great traditional theatre form.

For treating its subject with careful cinematic detail and with a deep sincerity towards the very rich folk painting scene in rural India.

For portraying with sensitivity and insight the vanishing tribe of the Muslim scroll painters whose essentially secular art harmonises painting and singing.

For its innovative and stylised interpretation of a singer's work and her milieu.

For exceptionally beautiful portrayal of the work of three painters, with verve, and unpretentious, but excellent visuals.

For portraying the philosophy of traditional "Shilpi", transcending the physical form of the sculpture, exploring the collective unconscious of Indian sculptors.

For memorable presentation of form and content of the Bharatnatyam dance through the exposition of Leela Samson's art, brilliantly synthesising dance and cinematographic language.

For a fine and moving tribute to one of the great living master of Dhrupad, Ustad Amiruddin Dagar.

For a cinematic tribute to the greatest living exponent of Rabindra Sangeet.

For focussing attention on a unique intermingling of classical and folk dance traditions which is in danger of extinction through an appealing film form.

For using play of light to enter the surface of a culture, unobtrusively, allowing it to reveal its magical metaphysics.

For recording sensitively the ancient theatre form of Koodiyattam as interpreted by the legendary Koodiyattam actor Ammannur Madhava Chakyar.

For its innovative cinematic portrayal of three women musicians of Carnatic tradition.

For an important documentation of a vital transitional period of our cultural heritage.

For a moving tribute from one artist to another and an appreciation of a painter's hidden expression.

For its passionate cinematic expression of a traditional martial art of Manipur.

For highlighting the creative abilities of the tribal women of Hazaribagh (Jharkhand) in an effective manner.

For the rich visual texture of the film on Kalarippayuttu with its simple and effective story telling powerfully counterpoints its message of the need to reject violence and war and develop a focused mind as a potent tool of self realisation.

For its rare attempt at interpreting the works of the legendary painter making him accessible even to those uninitiated to his art. The film examines the troubled times that Picasso lived in, his ideals, his relationships and the inevitable symbiosis of his life and work.

For a seamless film aesthetically blending fact, fiction and reconstruction with perceptive interviews bringing out the life of the Madhubani painters of Bihar.

For creatively presenting the transformation of Oriya Jatra from a folk form to a highly commercialised and mainstream form.

For using powerful imagery and ironical juxtaposition, the film depicts the life of a Koothu artist. With subtlety, it captures the frustration and the hopelessness of a performer whose art is a misfit in a changing cultural world.

For an emotive and enthralling exposition of the passion and dedication of a group, bound by the spirit of music, who transcend the commercial boundary to embrace their original creative flair. Without compromising, the group led to the adventure with courage and guts. The film maker has journeyed through this adventure with dramatic sensibility and compassion.

For taking us on a journey that chronicles the struggle to produce films in strife torn Manipur and in the process painting a vivid canvas, which captures cinema in the state as a medium of popular culture.

For aesthetic delineation of Bharatnatyam through the dance, performances and personal interpretation by one of the greatest living exponents of this classical art form.