Bhangaar Wins Non-Feature Swarna Kamal

By Pickle  July 20, 2026

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By Pickle News Network

Bharatbala’s Ram-Nami named Best Documentary; independent films on ageing, ecology, poetry and craft dominate the non-feature National Film Awards list

Sumira Roy’s Marathi-English documentary Bhangaar (Obsolete) has won the Best Non-Feature Film Swarna Kamal at the 72nd National Film Awards, shared with Ravi Raj Murmu’s Santhali-language Angen, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting announced. Bhangaar is a 64-minute portrait of Narayan and Iravati Lavate, India’s first octogenarian couple to jointly petition the President for euthanasia, shot inside their 12×12-foot chawl room in Mumbai; it has travelled to True/False, IDSFFK and IFFI. Roy, an independent Mumbai-based filmmaker, produced the film with Uma da Cunha, Siddhant Sarin, Monisha Advani, Apoorva Bakshi and Monisha Thyagarajan.

The Best Documentary Rajat Kamal went to Ram-Nami (Hindi), directed by Bharatbala Ganapathy and produced by BBP Studio’s Virtual Bharat Pvt. Ltd., on the Dalit Ramnami Samaj of Chhattisgarh — a community that, denied entry into temples for generations, tattooed the name of Ram across their bodies from head to toe. The film streams free on the Virtual Bharat YouTube channel and on the Virtual Bharat website. Bharatbala, the filmmaker behind Vande Mataram with A. R. Rahman and Maa Tujhe Salaam, is building Virtual Bharat as a 1,000-film anthology of untold Indian stories; on bringing Kailash Kher’s voice to the film, he recalled: “I met Kailash Kher at the airport, and I told him what we would be filming. Suddenly, I told him ‘Your voice should be a part of this landscape'”.

The Best Biographical / Historical Reconstruction / Compilation Film went to Kakori, produced by KSR Brothers and Minti Mishra and directed by Kamlesh K Mishra, on the 1925 Kakori train action by Indian revolutionaries against the British. The Best Arts / Culture Film honour went to Main Nida, produced by Sampreshan Multimedia and directed by Atul Pandey — a portrait of the late Urdu poet Nida Fazli. The Best Non-Feature Film Promoting Social and Environmental Values was awarded to Piplantri: A Tale of Eco Feminism (Hindi, Rajasthani and English), produced by Johnsons Suraj Films International and directed by Suraj Kumar, on the Rajasthan village that plants 111 trees for every girl child born.

The Best Animation Film trophy went to Touched as Water, a silent, hand-drawn short produced by JB Productions and directed and animated by Joshy Benedict — one of the strongest signals from the jury that independent Indian animation is entering award-worthy territory. The Best Short Film (Up to 30 minutes) was shared between Abhijeet Arvind Dalvi’s Hamsafar (Anushka Motion Pictures and Entertainments) and Aanand L. Rai’s Statue of Unity – Ekta ka Prateek, on the making of the world’s tallest statue in Gujarat.

The craft awards spanned cinematography, sound, editing and music. Best Cinematography went to Edmond Ranson for Life in Loom, a multilingual documentary in English, Tamil, Hindi, Assamese and Bengali on India’s handloom clusters. Best Sound Design went to T. S. Hari Hara Sudhan for Blue. Best Editing went to Manvir Jasrotia for NDA. Best Music Direction went to Shivpal Singh Kang for the Marathi documentary Parat 41°chya Magavar (On the Trail of 41°). Best Narration / Voice Over went to Soundarya Jayachandran for the English-language natural-history film Little Planet: A Tale of Frogs. Best Script was awarded to Faraz Ali for Obur (Hindi & Kashmiri).

Special Mention certificates went to Ananda Jyothi (Jose Antony) for directing Bhadra-Kali Natakam, and to Jaymin Modi and Lokesh Ghai for Chola Dora aur Sui on the Gaddi shepherd community of Himachal Pradesh.

In the Best Writing on Cinema section, the Best Book on Cinema Swarna Kamal was awarded to Naaniruvude Nimagaagi Naadiruvude Nanagaagi: Kannada Cinemada Thathva matthu Rajakeeya (Kannada) by Kenchanuru Pradeep Kumar Shetty, published by Mirror Pusthaka. The Best Film Critic Swarna Kamal was won by Hindi critic Sanjeev Shrivastava.

Most of the non-feature winners currently live on the festival circuit and on public-service platforms rather than mainstream OTT — Ram-Nami is the notable exception, streaming free on Virtual Bharat’s channels, while Bhangaar, Piplantri, Kakori, Main Nida and Touched as Water remain festival and film-society titles expected to travel through IFFI, MIFF, IDSFFK and Films Division / NFDC platforms in the coming season.

The Non-Feature Films Jury was chaired by veteran editor Aseem Sinha, with Kamlesh Udasi, Harri Nair, Kedar Gaekwad, Thripthi Sundar Abhikar, James Khangenbam and E. V. Ganeshbabu on the panel. The Best Writing on Cinema Jury was chaired by A. Chandrasekhar, with Rwita Dutta and Sujata Shiven as members