The Filmfare Awards South was held last night (Dec 21) at the Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai. While other award shows are gearing up to honour actors and technicians who impressed us in 2019, Filmfare South, woke up late to recognise the talents of 2018, which itself made the event look jaded.
Earlier, stars used to consider Filmfare Award as the second-highest honor after National Awards in India but now it has lost the charm in the crowded market. The irony is an award show organized by an entertainment portal (Behindwoods) recently, attracted more stars than Filmfare. Remember that last year (2018) also, the Filmfare awards south held in Hyderabad was a damp squib.
The gallery section in the indoor stadium was literally empty without fans or audiences and many award winners failed to show up. Trisha(Best Actress), Arvind Swamy(Best Actor critics choice), and Aishwarya Rajesh (Best Actress Critics Choice) were the only big names from Tamil. Veteran Malayalam director Hariharan bagged the Lifetime Achiever award.
None of the big stars from Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam turned up for the award show. A spokesperson from Karnataka film industry told southdreamz.com :
“Filmfare never gives respect to Kannada stars at their award function and hence we, including the KGK team who are busy on Dec 21 did not attend the function”.
Sources say that stars are mighty upset with the petty politics by the organizers of Filmfare and the bigger truth is that print media including magazines are no longer hot as social media has taken over.
The main problem is that Filmfare has failed to expand its market in the South which is now ruled by Award shows like Vikatan Awards, SIIMA Awards and a new player, Zee Awards has also entered the crowded market. Another popular award show which lost its glory and has shut down temporarily is the Vijay Awards.
Among the known faces seen last evening were, Manju Warrier, Aishwarya Lakshmi, Rakul Preet Singh, Shruti Hassan and Joju George.
Award winners who were conspicuous by their absence were, Dhanush, Sivakarthikeyan, Vijay Sethupathi, Ram Charan, Keerthy Suresh, Yash, Soubin Shahir, Prabhu Deva among others.
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