The Kerala state minister for culture, M.A. Baby on Tuesday announced the list of awards for the State Film Awards of 2009.

With several hits under his belt, Mammootty has won the Best Actor award for his role in ‘Paleri Manikam Oru Pathirakolapathakam’, while the Best Female actor award has been bagged by Shwetha Menon.

'Pazhassi Raja’ wins eight awards
Director Hariharan’s Mammootty starrer ‘Pazhassi Raja’ has won a stream of eight awards, including the one for Best Director-Hariharan, Best Scenarist-M.T. Vasudevan Nair, Second Best Actor-Manoj K. Jayan, Second Best Female Actor-Padmapriya, Best Film Editor-Sreekar Prasad, Art Director-Muthuraj, Costumer-Natarajan, and Dubbing Artiste-Shobby Tilakan

While ‘Pazhassi Raja’ has won eight awards, ‘Paleri Manikyam Oru Pathira Kolapathakathinte Katha’ has bagged four awards, including the one for the Best Feature Film. The second Best Feature film awards for 2009 will go to ‘Raamanam,' directed and produced by M.P. Sukumaran Nair.

Mohanlal’s ‘Ividae Swarghamanu’ marked as the Best Popular Film
When Sai Paranjape who headed the jury was asked about ‘Pazhassi Raja’ winning all the major awards, the judge stated, “Pazhassi Raja really merited all these awards because it was a technical masterpiece and was breath-taking evoking a bygone era.”

On the other hand, the director of ‘Paleri Manikyam Oru’ Renjith was happy to share his happiness and praised Mammootty, who wasn’t available to comment as he’s currently taking a one month break from acting.

Interestingly, the female Best Actress Award’s recipient Shwetha was initially worried to do the role in ‘Paleri Manikam’, as her role in the film was slightly older than her real age, but now after her name has been announced in the best actress category, the actress is all excited.

The other recipients include ‘Ividae Swarghamanu’ which has been tagged for the Best Popular film of 2009. The film starred the other superstar of Kerala, Mohanlal. The special jury award this time was won by Jagathy Sreekumar for his contribution in several films.

The list of award winners for 2009 were selected from 36 feature films, two children's films, two documentaries, 28 articles and 18 books on Malayalam cinema.