Telugu cinema closely followed Hindi films in the feature films winners list, with the sci-fi dystopian film, Kalki 2898 AD, winning the Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. The film also won the Best Production Design Award. Under the Best Screenplay Award section, Bandreddi Sukumar won Best Screenplay Writing (Original) for Pushpa (The Rule Part – 02) (Telugu), Venky Atluri won Best Dialogue Writing for Lucky Baskhar (Telugu), while Yogesh Deshpande won Best Screenplay Writer (Adapted) for Swargandharva Sudhir Phadke (Marathi). Interestingly, Amaran (Tamil), the biographical war film about the late Major Mukund Varadarajan, won the Best Director Award (Rajkumar Periasamy) and Best Editor Award (for R Kalaivannan), while the period action drama, Captain Miller (Tamil), won the award for Best Feature Film Promoting National, Social and Environmental Values. Amaran also won the Best Music Director (Background Music) for GV Prakash Kumar. This is the second National Award for the composer; he first bagged the award for the Suriya-starrer, Soorarai Pottru in 2020. The Best Music Director (songs) went to Shashwat Sachdev for his work in Shashwat Sachdev.35 Chinna Katha Kaadu (Telugu) won the Best Children’s Film, while Abhay Jodhpurkar won the Best Male Playback Singer for Gharat Ganpati (Marathi) and Vaikom Vijayalakshmi won the Best Female Playback Singer for A. R. M (Malayalam). Malayalam cinema also won the Best Cinematography Award, for Shehnad Jalal’s work in Bramayugam. Stunt choreographer Anl Arasu won the Best Action Direction for his work in Maharaja (Tamil). Best Sound Design went to Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (Hindi), while Best Make-up went to Committee Kurrollu (Telugu), Best Choreography to Stree 2 (Hindi), Best Lyrics to Maidaan (Hindi), and Best Costume Design to Pushpa (The Rule Part – 02) (Telugu). Best Child Artist Award was shared between Athish S Shetty, Arundev Pothula and Riddhiman Banerjee, Tapomoy Deb, and Gitashree Chakraborty, for their works in Mithya (Kannada), 35 Chinna Katha Kaadu (Telugu), and Onko Ki Kothin (Bengali), respectively.
