After a two-year hiatus, the Zee Cine Awards - Bollywood's equivalent of the Oscars - returned with a bang with A-list celebrities, such as Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, attending and performing dance numbers from their films for the gala ceremony.
Boasting a four-hour ceremony this year, the awards - which were held nine days ago at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore - had two categories: the popular choice and the jury choice, and this year the two diverged markedly. The jury awarded best film to Udaan, which also picked up the best director award for Vikramaditya Motwane. The small film about the coming-of-age of a young boy was officially selected to compete in the Un Certain Regard category at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Hrithik Roshan and Rai Bachchan won best actor and actress, respectively, for their performances in Guzaarish, a touching romantic drama about a quadriplegic seeking euthanasia.
But in the popular vote component, five million fans cast their ballot and the best film nod went to the action-packed Dabangg - the highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2010. It bagged nine prizes, including best debut director for Abhinav Kashyap, best female debut for Sonakshi Sinha and best music for Sajid-Wajid and Lalit Pandit.
My Name is Khan, a sentimental movie set in the US about a Muslim man with Asperger's syndrome, whose life takes an unexpected turn after the terrorist attacks of September 11, garnered best actor (popular choice) for Shah Rukh Khan and best director (popular choice) for Karan Johar. The best actress gong (popular choice) went to Vidya Balan for her role in Ishq Kiya, in which she plays a widow who is romanced by two con-men.
Accepting the award, the actress quipped: 'If I'd known that swearing, shooting a gun and having an affair with two men would get me an award, I would have done it five years ago.'
First launched in 1998, the Zee Cine Awards have established themselves as the most prestigious awards for the Indian cinema industry. The organisers have grown as well: today, Zee Entertainment is now one of India's largest entertainment conglomerates and a prominent producer of Hindi-language programmes.