Special night for Bachchan and Bhansali at Filmfare awards

Mumbai, Feb 26 (IANS) It was a very special night for Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Their collaborative classic "Black" walked away with all the major Filmfare awards including for best picture, best actor for Bachchan and best actress for Rani Mukherji.

The film also won the award for best director and best editing too at the 51st Fair One Filmfare Awards function Saturday night.

Exultant and tired, Sanjay Bhansali was especially happy that "Black" had walked away with all the awards in the critics and popular awards categories.

"It's very rare for a film to do that," he said. "I never expected us to get the best actor, best actress and best film awards in both sections. That makes these awards a special triumph," said the filmmaker who has swept the Filmfare awards earlier too for "Devdas" and "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam".

There were many special moments at the Filmfare awards Saturday night. The most special of them all was the first public appearance of Amitabh Bachchan after his long illness.

Though he didn't sit among the audience he appeared on stage thrice to collect his two awards for best actor (critics' and popular) and to give Yash Chopra the 'Power' award.

Rani, who got the best actress award from Hollywood actor Will Smith, gave the lifetime achievement award to Shabana Azmi, who's no stranger to awards.

All the nominees paled into near-insignificance under the formidable influence of "Black" power at the function. "Black" swept all the other awards too, for first timers Bela Sehgal (best editing) and Ayesha Kapoor for best supporting actress.

Vidya Balan won herself two awards, including the Best Debut for "Parineeta". The poet-extraordinaire Gulzar won the best lyric award for the popular "Kajra re" in "Bunty Aur Babli". The song won Alisha Chinai the best female vocalist award.

Later Aishwarya Rai brought the house down when she danced to a remix version of "Kajra re". Abhishek Bachchan grooved to a medley of his songs while Madhuri Dixit, who had flown down specially from the US for her performance, danced to her songs in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Devdas". Unfortunately the director couldn't meet up with Madhuri.

Conspicuous absentees were Akshay Kumar and Nana Patekar who won for best actor in a comic role and best actor in a villainous role, respectively, for "Garam Masala" and "Apaharan".

Akshay was in Delhi during the awards while Patekar was shooting in Dubai.

Abhishek Bachchan won for the award for best actor in a supporting role for "Sarkar". A high point in the evening was the moment when Abhishek caught hold of father Amitabh and hugged him spontaneously.

The audience didn't lag far behind. It gave the senior Bachchan a standing ovation.

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