The 66th National Film Awards were announced on Friday and the Best Actor award was shared by Ayushmann Khurrana and Vicky Kaushal for Andhadhun and Uri respectively. However, Malayalam megastar Mammootty’s fans felt that his critically acclaimed performance in the film Peranbu should have won him the award for best actor. According to a report in The Hindu, fans of the megastar descended on jury chairman Rahul Rawail’s Facebook page and sent a lot of hate messages.
Ever since the film awards were declared, the star’s fans vented their ire everywhere on social media because Mammootty did not get the top honour for Peranbu as was expected. They flooded their own fan pages with posts slamming the jury’s decision and created hashtags such as #justiceformammootty and #peranmbudeservesit, and also trolled the actors who won the awards.
Rahul Rawail reportedly sent a message to Mammootty via Facebook about his fans’ unruly behaviour and also posted his message online. Though Rawail deleted it later, the Hindu reported this was what he posted: “Message sent by me, as Chairman of the Jury of 66th NFA, to Mammooty: ‘Hi Mr.Mammoty. There has been a lot of ‘hate mail’, that too extremely nasty, that I have been receiving from your fans, or so-called fan clubs, as to why you were not given the National Award as Best Actor for the film ‘Peranbu’. Let me set the record straight: Firstly, NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO QUESTION A JURY DECISION. Secondly, your film ‘Peranbu’ had been REJECTED by the Regional Panel and hence did not contend in the Central Panel. Your fans and/or devotees should stop fighting a lost cause. Never question a Jury! (sic).”
Rawail soon received a reply from the actor apologising for the behaviour of his fans, which was also shared by the jury chairman: “Reply from Mammootty: ‘Sorry sir. I have no knowledge about it. Still, I apologize for what had happened’.” This post was also later deleted by Rawail.
Peranbu, directed by Ram which starred Mammootty as the troubled dad of a differently-abled child, had won several international recognition and awards. It was then screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival to extremely good response, which made its release in India highly anticipated. Though the film was critically acclaimed, it was not a commercial success.
The film was bankrolled by PL Thenappan under his banner Sri Rajalakshmi Films. A bilingual, Peranbu was released in Tamil and Malayalam simultaneously. Yuvan Shankar Raja composed the music for the film with Theni Eswar wielding the camera and Suriya Pradhaman editing.
(Content provided by Digital Native)