Minister Saji Cherian will announce the State Film Awards tomorrow at 5 pm. Never before have so many star-studded films lined up for the award. The films of Mammootty, son Dulquer Salman, Mohanlal and son Pranav are competing with each other. Indrans, Suraj Venjaramoodu and Guru Somasundaram are also in the fray.
Mammootty’s competition films are One and The Priest. Drishyam-2 is a Mohanlal movie. Suresh Gopi is also seen in the movie ‘Kaval’.
The film also stars Prithviraj, Jayasurya, Kunchacko Boban, Dileep, Biju Menon, Fahad Fazil, Tovino Thomas, Joju George, Chemban Vinod, Asif Ali, Nivin Pauly, Saubin Shahir, Sunny Wayne, Anoop Menon and Unni Mukundan.
The actresses are not far behind either. Manju Warrier, Parvathi Thiruvoth, Kalyani Priyadarshan, Nimisha Sajayan, Anna Ben, Rajeesh Vijayan, Darshana Rajendran, Aishwarya Lakshmi, Urvashi, Surabhi, Grace Antony, Namitha Pramod, Meena, Mamta Mohandas, Manju Pillai, Lena, Sania Iyappan, Films by Pillai, Shruti Sathyan, Riya Saira, Anju Kurian, Divya M. Nair, Vince Aloysius and Diana are competing.
‘Home’ directed by Rojin Thomas and ‘Heart’ which conquered young hearts are in the competition. Tara Ramanujan’s ‘Nishidho’, Siddhartha Siva’s ‘An’, Manoj Kana’s ‘Khedda’, Sherry Govindan-T.Deepesh’s ‘Avanovilona’ and Dr. Biju’s ‘The Portraits’ and 3 films directed by Jayaraj are in the competition.
The final jury, chaired by Hindi director and screenwriter Syed Akhtar Mirza, saw all the films. The 142 films that entered the competition were seen by 2 preliminary juries and then the best 40–45 films were left to be judged by the final jury. Some of the pictures they specifically called and saw.