Tabu, Shobhana share National Award for Best Actress Lagaan is voted the year's best entertainer

Rediff Entertainment Bureau

The 49th National Film Awards were announced on Friday, July 26, at Shastri Bhavan, New Delhi.

The Best Actress National Award was shared by Tabu (Madhur Bhandarkar's Chandni Bar) and Shobhana (Revathy's Mitr: A Friend).

Tabu plays a bar dancer in Chandni Bar. The film deals with the trials and tribulations in her life, when her gangster husband is killed and her children follow in their parents' footsteps. Bhandarkar says of his lead heroine, "The kind of hard work and dedication Tabu has put in the film cannot be described. She deserved it."

Choreographer Farha Khan agrees. "I was thrilled when I heard the news. I had told her after watching the film, that they should give her two National Awards for her work in Chandni Bar."

This is Tabu's second National Award, the first being for Gulzar's Maachis. Tabu claims that she was 'lucky' to be decorated twice with the National awards. "I think Allah is very great and kind to me," she says, adding "I am very lucky to get the award twice, especially as I belong to a small town.

"I think the role and all the love I got from everyone is the only secret (behind her winning the award). I think I am very lucky," she says.

Noting that she was very particular about choosing good roles she said "I am very clear about my direction and road".

Mitr: My friend is Malayalam actress Shobhana's first English film. She plays a self-sacrificing housewife, who finds her own identity later.

Malayalam actor Murali won the Best Actor Award for Neythukaran while the Best Film Award went to Girish Kasaravalli's Kannada film Dweep. B Lenin bagged the Best Director Award for his Ooruku Nooru Peru and Aamir Khan's Lagaan was awarded the best entertainer of the year.