NEW DELHI: The 69th National Awards were announced by film-maker Ketan Mehta, heading an 11-member jury and 'Rocketry: The Nambi Effect' a 2022 Indian biographical drama film written, produced and directed by actor R. Madhavan in his directorial debut won the National Award for Best Feature Film.

The National Film Award for Best Director went to Nikhil Mahajan for the Marathi film, Godavari, and actor Allu Arjun made history in the Telugu film industry by becoming the first actor to win the 'Best Actor' National Award for the Telugu film Pushpa: The Rise (Part I).

Bollywood actresses Alia Bhatt and Kriti Sanon both share the 'Best Actress' award for their roles in the 2022 Indian Hindi-language biographical crime drama 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and 2021 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film 'Mimi' directed by Laxman Utekar respectively.

Bollywood actor Pankaj Tripathi has won the National Award for 'Best Supporting Actor' for Mimi and Pallavi Joshi has won the National Award for 'Best Supporting Actress' for the film, The Kashmir Files. Directed by Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, The Kashmir Files, has also won the Nargis Dutt Award for 'Best Film' on National Integration.

M.M Keeravani has won the award for 'Best Music Direction' for Director S S Rajamouli's magnum opus 2022 Telugu film RRR. Keeravani, has also won the 'Oscar Award' for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for 'Naatu Naatu' for the film RRR.

Keeravani's playback singer and music director son Kaala Bhairava has won the 'Best Male Playback Singer' award for the Tamil song 'Komuram Bheemudo' in the film RRR while singer Shreya Ghosal has been awarded the National Award for 'Best Female Playback Singer' for the song Maayava Chaayavaa in the Tamil film 'Iravin Nizhal'.

The film RRR has also won several other awards, including the 'Wholesome Entertainer Award, Best Special Effects (V Srinivas Mohan) award, Best Choreography (Prem Rakshith) and Best Action Direction (King Soloman).

Besides Alia's big win, the film 'Gangubai Kathiawadi' also won National Awards for Best Make-up Artist, Best Editing (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) and Best Screenplay (Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Utkarshini Vashishtha). It shared the Best Screenplay with the Malayalam film Nayattu.

Shoojit Sircar's biographical drama Sardar Udham, starring Vicky Kaushal, won the Best Hindi Film award, as well as the awards for Best Cinematography (Avik Mukhopadhyay), Best Audiography (Sinoy Joseph), Best Production Design (Dmitrii Malich and Mansi Dhruv Mehta) and Best Costume Design (Veera Kapur Ee) and Director Vishnu Varadhan's film 'Shershaah' won the 'Special Jury Award' for a feature film. 

The jury also awarded a national award to the film 'Ek Tha Gaon' by Srishti Lakhera in the category of the best Non-feature Film and the National Award for Best Book on Cinema was given to the book Music by Laxmikant Pyarelal: The incredibly melodious journey authored by Rajiv Vijayakar.