The Andhra Pradesh Film Directors Association expressed its happiness over the announcement of the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award to popular director Shyam Benegal, who was born and brought up in Hyderabad, and took the prestige of the Indian cinema to international level.
He made his debut as director through 'Ankur'. He showed the path to bring out several experimental and message-oriented films in the Indian cinema. He had brought out the latent talents of several film artistes under his direction.
Shyam Benegal had strove to maintain values in the Indian film industry. The Indian government had already felicitated him with the highest civilian awards like Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan some time ago.
The Film Directors Association had also expressed its happy over the selection of 'Bommalata' as the Best Regional Film in Telugu category.
Surprisingly, it was the debut film for both the director and producer. Kovelamudi Prakash, son of popular director K Raghavendra Rao, tested his hand as director through this movie, while Rana Daggubati, son of D Sureshbabu and grandson of Dr D Ramanaidu produced the movie.