3 Idiots sweeps Screen Nominations

'3 Idiots' seems to have swept aside every film of consequence that released this year. Such is the impact of the film, a lot of which has to do with its late release, that every other movie that came before it, seems to be dwarfed in comparison. And this is a year which has seen films like 'Dev D', 'Gulaal', 'Firaaq', 'Rocket Singh Salesman Of The Year', 'Kaminey', 'Paa' and 'Love Aaj Kal', all of which have stretched the language of Hindi cinema in their own manner. But '3 Idiots' seems all set to bag most major awards. An indication of things to come was received when the film received 21 nominations out of 28 categories in the forthcoming 16th Annual Screen Awards. It is the first film to win so many awards in the 16 year history of Screen Awards. Rajkumar Hirani's latest film has been nominated in the Best Film category along with 'Dev D', 'Kaminey'. 'Love Aaj Kal' and 'Paa'. Aamir Khan, the film's protagonist has but naturally been nominated in the Best Actor category along with Amitabh Bachchan (Paa), Ranbir Kapoor (Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani and Rocket Singh Salesman Of The Year), Saif Ali Khan (Love Aaj Kal) and Shahid Kapur ( Kaminey). Hirani too finds himself in distinguished company with fellow directors Vishal Bhardwaj, R. Balki, Imtiaz Ali, and Anurag Kashyap, in the nominations for Best Director. Actress Priyanka Chopra leads from the front where the nominations for Best Actress are concerned as she has two nominations, one for 'Kaminey' and the other for 'What's Your Raashee?'. The other actresses nominated in this category include Vidya Balan for 'Paa', Kareena Kapoor for '3 Idiots', Katrina Kaif for 'New York' and Deepika Padukone for 'Love Aaj Kal'. This is probably the first time that a father and son have both been nominated for awards even though in different categories. Actor Rishi Kapoor has two nominations in Best Supporting Actor category (Love Aaj Kal and Luck By Chance), quite like his son, Ranbir who has two nominations in the Best Actor category. The others nominated for Best Male Supporting Actor are Abhimanyu Singh for 'Gulaal', R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi for '3 Idiots'. The Best Female Supporting Actor nominations include Arundhati Nag for 'Paa', Divya Dutt for 'Delhi 6', Guahar Khan for 'Rocket Singh Salesman Of The Year', Neha Dhupia for 'Raat Gayi Baat Gayi' and Shahana Goswami for 'Firaaq'. The Best Actor in a Comic Role sees nominations for Om Vaidya (3 Idiots), Paresh Rawal (De Dana Dan), Sanjay Mishra (All The Best) and Vinay Pathak (Raat Gayi Baat Gayi). The Best Actor in a Negative Role sees nominations of actors like Boman Irani (3 Idiots), Kay Kay Menon (Gulaal), Mahesh Manjrekar (Wanted) and Manish Chaudhari (Rocket Singh Salesman Of The Year). Hirani also finds himself nominated along with Abhijat Joshi in the Best Story, Best Screenplay and Best Dialogues categories for '3 Idiots'. His fellow directors like R. Balki, Imtiaz Ali, and Anurag Kashyap too have been nominated in all three categories. The music composer nominations sees Pritam leading with three nominations, 'Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani', 'Love Aaj Kal' and 'Tum Mile', followed by A. R. Rahman for 'Delhi 6' and Vishal Bhardwaj for 'Kaminey'. The Best Background Score has nominations from Amit Truvedi (Dev D), Shantanu Moitra, Atul Raninga and Sanjay Wandreker (3 Idiots), Vishal Bhardwaj (Kaminey), Illayaraja (Paa) and Salim Suliaman (Rocket Singh – Salesman of The Year). The Best Female Playback Singher sees a spate of new voices being nominated like Kavita Seth (Iktaara from Wake Up Sid), Rekha Bhardwaj (Genda Phool from Delhi 6), Shreya Ghoshal (Zoobie Doobie, 3 Idiots), Shilpa Rao (Mudi Mudi, Paa) and Sunidhi Chauhan (Mere Sang Chal Zara, New York). The Most Promising Debut Director has young Ayan Mukjerjee (Wake Up Sid) competing with Nandita Das (Firaaq), Pankaj Advani (Sankat City), Zoya Akhtar (Luck By Chance) and Shivajee Chandrabhushan (Frozen). The Most Promising Newcomer Male has nominations like Amole Gupte and Chandan Roy Sanyal (Kaminey), Navin Kaushik (Rocket Singh Salesman Of The Year) and Om Vaidya (3 Idiots). In the Female category, Mahie Gill and Kalki Koechlin (Dev D), Jesse Randhawa (Gulaal), Gauhar Khan (Rocket Singh – Salesman of the Year) and Giselle Monteiro (Love Aaj Kal) have been nominated. It's a rare year when the likes of Ashutosh Gowariker and Rakesh Mehra do not find a mention in any of the categories despite having a release each this year in 'Delhi 6' and 'What's Your Raashee?'.