# National Film Award for Best Short Film (up to 30 Min)

The National Film Award for Best Short Film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards presented for Non-Feature Films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus).
The award was instituted in 1987, at 35th National Film Awards and awarded annually for the short films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages.

## Awards

Award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus Award) and cash prize. Cash prize amount varied over the period. Following table illustrates the cash prize amount over the years:
| Year (Period) | Cash Prize |
| 1987 (32nd) – 2005 (53rd) | Producer and Director: Rajat Kamal and ₹10,000 (US$120) Each |
| 2006 (54th) until date | Producer and Director: Rajat Kamal and ₹50,000 (US$600) Each |

### Winners

Following are the award winners over the years:
* Indicates a joint award for that year
List of films, showing the year, language(s), producer(s), director(s) and citation :
| Year | Film(s) | Language(s) | Producer(s) | Director(s) | Citation |
| 1987 (35th) | The Eight Column Affair | English | FTII | Sriram Raghavan | For its innovative use of cinematic techniques to put together a surrealistic collage of visual that add up to a delightfully brisk narrative, full of whimsical humour. |
| 1988 (36th) | The Story of Tiblu | Idu Mishmi | Santosh Sivan for Films Division | Santosh Sivan | For telling the story of a spirited young tribal girl who comes into her own in the alien environment of an urban school, while retaining the innocence and sensitivity bred of living close to nature; and for capturing the freshness and spontaneity of its tribal actors in real life locations with enduring simplicity. |
| 1989 (37th) | Behula | Bengali | Raja Mitra | Raja Mitra | For a story well told. |
| 1990 (38th) | Aamukh | Hindi | FTII | Rajkumar | For being a forceful statement of the personal rights of a woman through the emotional impact of one incident in which she rises against a social taboo. |
| 1991 (39th) | Punaravritti | Hindi | FTII | Imo Singh | For delicating handling the loneliness and plight of an old woman who is forced to relive emotions because of her overprotective nature. |
| 1991 (39th) | Totanama | Hindi | Vikas Satwalekar | Chandita Mukherjee | For its traditional style, narrative structure and good production values. |
| 1992 (40th) | Agar Aap Chahein | Hindi | Shahnaz Rahim for Films Division | Mazahir Rahim | For a moving story of a village community which has been saved from migration to a city by timely help from a bank for agricultural development. |
| 1993 (41st) | Sunday | Hindi | National Center of Films for Children and Young People | Pankaj Advani | For taking a total holiday from logic and inhibitions and creating a most entertaining and humorous fantasy which, with all its improbabilities, will succeed in casting a spell on its audiences. |
| 1994 (42nd) | Still Life | • Hindi • English | FTII | Subhadro Chowdhary | For its stylistic sophistication in dealing with the chaos of painful experience. |
| 1995 (43rd) | The Rebel | Hindi | John Shankarmangalam | Rajashree | For showing an adolescent's journey to maturity and his coming to terms with his mother. |
| 1996 (44th) | Vidiyalai Nokki | Tamil | • F and T • V. T. I. N. Chennai | P. Venkatesh | For making an eloquent statement on the gift of sight. |
| 1996 (44th) | Athmeeyam | Malayalam | FTII | Nandakumar Kavil | For presenting a traditional artist's inner rebellion against the denial of his creative identity. |
| 1997 (45th) | Hypnothesis | Hindi | FTII | Rajat Kapoor | For a serious look, light heartedly presented, of the travesties of mass cinema. |
| 1998 (46th) | Jee Karta Tha | Hindi | Mohan Agashe for Films Division | Hansa Thapliyal | For its brilliant originality in delineating a small town milieu and in evolving a new cinematic idiom. |
| 1999 (47th) | Blind Folded | Tamil | A. Sriram | S. Sri Ram | For its creative controlled treatment of an emotional and socially relevant theme. |
| 2000 (48th) | Bhor | Bengali | Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute | Ritubarna Chudgar | For its multi-layered treatment of a story that sketches the lives of two young people (sibling) caught in the web of their past and yet coping for survival. |
| 2001 (49th) | Chaitra | Marathi | FTII | Kranti Kanade | For beautifully exploring human relations centred around an age-old ritual of Haldi and Kumkum. |
| 2002 (50th) | Sunder Jibon | Bengali | Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute | Sandeep Chattopadhyay | For its sensitive and nuanced story about a writer and the sour taste of beauty. The film is notable for its technical excellence and the excellent synergy created by the young director Sandip Chattopadhyay and his colleagues from the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in Calcutta. This award applauds them all. |
| 2003 (51st) | Sati Radhika | Assamese | Anjali Das | Anjali Das | For a popular tale relating to the great 14th century reformer Shankara Deva who stood against caste inequality. The tale narrates an allegory wherein Sati Radhika a fisherwoman perform a miraculous feat, which others could not, thus bringing out the noble concept of social equality. |
| 2004 (52nd) | Cradle Song | • English • Hindi | Tripurari Sharan for FTII | Nimisha Pandey | For exploring the mental agony of a couple, that has given birth to a crippled child in a very ethereal and stimulating cinematic style. |
| 2005 (53rd) | Thackkayin Meedha Naangu Kangal | Tamil | • Doordarshan • Ray Cinema | Vasanth | For its moving and realistic depiction of pride, deprivation and emotion in a small coastal village of Tamil Nadu. |
| 2006 (54th) | Ek Aadesh: Command For Choti | Hindi | Children's Film Society | Ramesh Asher | For sensitively bringing out the moral dilemma created by existence at a subsistence level in a hostile environment. |
| 2007 (55th) | Udedh Bun | Bhojpuri | FTII | Siddharth Sinha | For creatively portraying a young boy's dilemma as he comes face to face with the temptations of life. The film evocatively explores the erotic under‐currents in this coming of age tale. |
| 2008 (56th) | Stations | • Hindi • Marathi • English | FTII | Emmanuel Palo | For weaving a complex contemporary form of expression, through fragmented stories of a few sparsely connected lives in transit, over an omnipresent dark urban reality of economic disparity, alienation, and bad faith. |
| 2009 (57th) | Boond | Hindi | Kumar Mangat | Abhishek Pathak | For "Wars will be fought for water", a story of the future set in a village starved of water, food and love. |
| 2010 (58th) | Kal 15 August Dukan Band Rahegi | Hindi | FTII | Prateek Vats | With energy and vigour, the documentary records very interesting images of a group of young students, who are trying to relate, with ideology of freedom and the stifling authoritarian reality. In the process, the life is entangled with intrigues and doubts. |
| 2011 (59th) | Panchakki | Hindi | Sanjeev Rattan | Sanjeev Rattan | For creating a misty and magical world through simple and available cinematic tools. The film is an engrossing lyrical fantasy. |
| 2012 (60th) | Kaatal | Marathi | FTII | Vikrant Pawar | Rigorously crafted, the film explores an evolving relationship between two young people with rare maturity and restraint. Even while dealing with the very nebulous and the almost ephemeral, the film is meticulous in its expressions. |
| 2013 (61st) | Mandrake ! Mandrake ! | Hindi | FTII | Ruchir Arun | For the deftly crafted story of a young man who transforms a rundown warehouse into an Aladdin's Cave through the fun and frolic of the moving image where magic, mystery and adventure become possible. |
| 2014 (62nd) | Mitraa | Marathi | Athaansh Communications | Ravindra Jadhav | For its empathetic portrayal of its pivotal character’s sexual orientation, and the question of freedom around it. Shot in monochrome, the film adds to the antiquity for the era it is set in. |
| 2015 (63rd) | Aushadh | Marathi | Amol Deshmukh | Amol Deshmukh | An untiring effort to stay humane. |
| 2016 (64th) | Aaba | English | Raj Kumar Gupta | Amar Kaushik | Cinematic excellence comes to life in this intimate story where the filmmaker shows that silence can also be used as a powerful language of expression. |
| 2017 (65th) | Mayat | Marathi | Suyash Shinde | Suyash Shinde | A layered film that presents morality and ethics as choices available to us even in our most desperate and needy moments. |
| 2018 (66th) | Kharvas | Marathi | Aditya Suhas Jambhale | Aditya Suhas Jambhale | |
| 2019 (67th) | Custody | Hindi | Ambiecka Pandit | Ambiecka Pandit | 'Custody' is a story that is set over a few hours, but has infinite ramifications. At a new year's eve celebration at home, a group of old friends spiral into a nerve wracking whodunit when the baby of the host chokes in a fire. Struggling to save their bond of years while the baby's life hangs in the balance, the film questions the subjective barometer of morality. |