India, Aug. 1 -- Kannada cinema came cropper at the 71st National Film Awards for 2023, winning only two awards. The first one went to Chidanand Naik, for Best Script in the Non-Feature category, for his short film, Sunflowers were the first ones to know. In the feature film category, the Best Kannada film was Kandeelu, directed by Yashoda Prakash and starring Prabhakar Kunder in the lead.

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When Ashutosh Gowariker announced the film as winner, netizens were taken by surprised, as they'd not heard of Yashoda's film earlier. Although Kandeelu had done the film festival circuit and even won a few awards, including 2nd Best Kannada film at the ...