We never claimed that Dollu was a sync sound film: Sagar Puranik about best audiography award controversy

Last evening, Kannada filmmaker Sagar Puranik was on cloud nine after his debut feature film, Dollu, won a couple of National Awards. Apart from being adjudged the Best Regional Film Kannada, Dollu also got a Best Audiography award for Location Recording in Sync Sound movies. Within moments, though, social media was abuzz with posts that the film did not deserve the second award because it was not shot in sync sound. The film’s sound designer Nithin Lukose and Oscar winner Resul Pookutty both highlighted the same.

When we reached out to Sagar last evening, the young filmmaker was still trying to understand the issue, but told us that his team never claimed that Dollu was shot in sync sound and their application for National Award consideration contained no such information. The filmmaker and producer Pavan Wadeyar were then trying to reach the committee responsible for the awards and sort out the confusion.

In the meantime, Sagar took to social media with a clarification, writing, “It is a surreal feeling and we are more than elated to let you all know that Dollu has won the National Award for the best Regional film at the 68th National Film Awards! The best producers, the best technicians, best cast, crew, and the best direction team has made this epic successful journey of our film Dollu! 🙂I'm grateful to everyone who stood by us and wished us well! We have also won another technical award which says that we have won Best Audiography, location sound recordist (for sync sound films only). This is a little confusing for us as our film is NOT a sync sound film. There is no mention of the specific Sync sound requirements even in the application form. I am assuming that the jury members have noticed the highly difficult process of recreating the sounds for all the Dollu performances and have acknowledged it in this manner. I still recollect how painstaking and meticulous it was to sync sounds with the powerful drumming we captured on camera, as it was multiple beats per second. All credit to Nithin Lukose, Mr KrishnanUnni, Jobin and the the entire Dollu team for executing it to perfection! We are very grateful to the Ministry of I&B, Indian Government and all the jury members for acknowledging our hard work and awarding us with the most prestigious National Film Awards!”