American actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Credit: © Featureflash Photo Agency/Shutterstock

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been many things: a professional football player, a professional wrestler, a skyscraper-investigating FBI agent, a shape-shifting demi-god, and even the tooth fairy. By excelling in a variety of roles—both in real life and in film—Johnson has inspired many people throughout the world.

Dwayne Douglas Johnson was born on May 2, 1972, in Hayward, California. His father was the Canadian professional wrestler Rocky Johnson, and his grandfather was the Samoan wrestler Peter Maivia. The family moved frequently as Dwayne was growing up, because of his father’s career. Dwayne played football for the University of Miami and graduated in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree. He briefly played for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League before leaving to pursue a career in wrestling.

Beginning in 1996, Johnson gained fame wrestling under the name Rocky Maivia in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF; now known as World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.). Soon after, he began using the nickname “The Rock.” He became one of the most famous wrestlers in the organization. Johnson’s matches served as main attractions at such large wrestling events as WrestleMania and SummerSlam. Johnson co-wrote the memoir The Rock Says… (2000) with Joe Layden.

Johnson began his motion picture acting career with a minor role in the adventure film The Mummy Returns (2001) and a starring role in the related fantasy film The Scorpion King (2002). He has starred in many other action films, including The Rundown (2003), Walking Tall (2004), Doom (2005), and Skyscraper (2018). Johnson has appeared in several of the automotive action films in the “Fast & Furious” series, beginning with Fast Five (2011). His other notable movies include the disaster film San Andreas (2015); the family comedies The Game Plan (2007) and Tooth Fairy (2010); and the adventure comedies Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). The muscular Johnson often plays brawny characters that can be by turns intimidating and likable. Johnson has provided his voice for video games and animations. For example, he voiced the character Maui in the animated movie Moana (2016).

Timothée Chalamet as Paul and Rebecca Ferguson as his mother, Jessica, in Dune (2021).
Credit: Warner Bros.

This month, an exciting new motion-picture adaptation, titled Dune (2021), appeared in theaters. The film starred actor Timothée Chalamet as the lead character, Paul Atreides. Dune was directed by Denis Villeneuve.

Dune is a science fiction novel by the American author Frank Herbert. It was published in 1965. The title refers to the desert planet Arrakis, where the action of the novel takes place. Dune is notable for its imaginative desert setting and its religious and environmental themes.

The novel tells the story of Paul Atreides, the heir of a noble house that is taking control of Arrakis. The planet is important because it is the only place where deposits of the fictional spice melange are found. Melange is a druglike substance also used in interstellar travel (travel among the stars).

When House Atreides is betrayed by the evil House Harkonnen, Paul is cast out into the desert along with his mother, Jessica. Jessica is a member of an order of mystics called the Bene Gesserit. In the desert, Paul and Jessica take up with a mysterious people known as the Fremen. The Fremen survive in the desert wearing stillsuits, special suits that conserve and recycle their body fluids. The Fremen follow a religion that revolves around melange, giant sandworms that live in the open desert, and transforming Arrakis into a more habitable world.

Dune features a large and complex cast of characters. Notable people in House Atreides include Paul’s father, Duke Leto; the swordmaster Duncan Idaho; the minstrel Gurney Halleck; the doctor Wellington Yueh; and the mentat Thufir Hawat. Mentats are human beings trained to replace advanced computers, which have been banned. Notable characters in House Harkonnen include the evil Baron Vladimir; his nephews Glossu “the Beast” Rabban and Feyd-Rautha, and the mentat Piter de Vries.

Herbert wrote five more books in the “Dune” series. Dune‘s direct sequels are Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune (1976). God Emperor of Dune (1981) shifts the action thousands of years into the future, to an Arrakis transformed by Paul’s son, Leto Atreides II. Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985) continue the saga of the Atreides family. Following Frank Herbert’s death in 1986, his son Brian and the American author Kevin J. Anderson wrote a number of additional novels set in the Dune universe.

A motion-picture adaptation, also titled Dune, was directed by David Lynch and released in 1984. The Dune saga has also been adapted into two television miniseries, “Dune” (2000) and “Children of Dune” (2003).

Chloé Zhao
Credit: © Chris Pizzello, Reuters/Alamy Images

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. All month long, Behind the Headlines will feature AAPI pioneers in a variety of areas.

In April, the Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao became the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for the motion picture Nomadland (2020). The film tells the story of a widow who travels across the United States in a van after losing everything in an economic recession. Zhao was only the second woman to win the Oscar for best director, after the American director Kathryn Bigelow won it in 2010. In addition to directing, Zhao also has written and produced many of her films.

Frances McDormand as Fern in the film “Nomadland” (2020).
Credit: © Searchlight Pictures

Chloé Zhao was born Zhao Ting on March 31, 1982, in Beijing, China. She attended boarding school in London, England. She finished high school in the United States. She then attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In 2005, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science. Zhao later studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Zhao won several awards for her short film Daughters (2010). It tells the story of a young woman in rural China forced into an arranged marriage. Zhao’s first feature-length film was Songs My Brothers Taught Me. It explores the relationship between a Lakota Sioux brother and sister. Zhao’s other movies include The Rider (2017).

February 12, 2020

On Sunday, February 9, the 92nd Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. As happened in 2019, the award ceremony went without a host. Instead, the comedians Steve Martin and Chris Rock opened the show, and a variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards.

Parasite, which won best picture at the 2020 Academy Awards, stars (from left) Choi Woo Shik, Song Kang Ho, Chang Hyae Jin, and Park So Dam. Credit: CJ Entertainment

The biggest headline on Oscars night was the naming of the South Korean black comedy Parasite as best picture. Black comedy is characterized by bizarrely or morbidly humorous plots and situations. Directed by Bong Joon Ho, Parasite is the first movie in a language other than English to win best picture. Parasite also won best original screenplay and best international film. Bong too made history as the first South Korean to win best director. The World War I drama 1917—the favorite to win best picture before the ceremony—missed out on the top award but took home the best cinematography, best sound mixing, and best visual effects Oscars.

Renée Zellweger won the best actress award for her portrayal of the former Hollywood star Judy Garland in the biopic Judy. Joaquin Phoenix earned best actor for his leading role in the origin story of the Batman villain Joker. Brad Pitt won best supporting actor for his stuntman sidekick role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Laura Dern was named best supporting actress as a divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. Toy Story 4 won best animated feature, and American Factory won best documentary. American Factory, the story of a Chinese-run glass factory in Ohio, was the first film made by Higher Ground Productions, a company run by former United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The World War II satire Jojo Rabbit earned the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

Each trophy given out at the ceremony (there were a total of 24 this year) is officially called an Academy Award of Merit, but the small golden statues have been known as “Oscars” since the 1930′s. The origin of the nickname is uncertain, but most histories center on Margaret Herrick, a former director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Apparently, upon seeing the statuettes for the first time in 1931, Herrick remarked that they looked a lot like her Uncle Oscar. Oscar came into common usage for the award soon after.

February 27, 2019

On Sunday, February 24, the 91st Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. For the first time since 1989, the award ceremony went without a host. Instead, a variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards. The comedy drama Green Book took home the coveted best picture award, and Alfonso Cuarón won best director for his film Roma.

Viggo Mortensen (left) and Mahershala Ali starred in Green Book, the best picture winner at the 2019 Academy Awards in Hollywood. Credit: © Universal Pictures

Hollywood’s biggest night began with a rousing performance by the rock group Queen, the subject of the best picture-nominated film Bohemian Rhapsody. Later in the ceremony, that film’s star, Rami Malek, became the first Arab American to win best actor for his charismatic portrayal of former Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury. British star Olivia Colman won best actress for her role as Queen Anne in the period dark comedy The Favourite. Anne was the first queen of Great Britain, which was formed when the Kingdom of Scotland united with the Kingdom of England and Wales in 1707.

Roma, a Mexican film that follows the life of an indigenous domestic worker, lost out on the best picture award, but it did top the best foreign language film category. Green Book told the story of a black musician and his white driver and bodyguard on a tour of the American south in 1962. The film’s title was taken from the The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook that once helped African American travelers navigate dangerous racial discrimination in the southern United States. African American actor Mahershala Ali won the best supporting actor award for his role in the film, which also won best original screenplay.

As for the other top awards on Sunday, Regina King won  best supporting actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk, a movie based on a 1974 novel by African American author James Baldwin. Director Spike Lee’s  BlacKkKlansman earned the best adapted screenplay award. That film told the story of a black detective who investigated the Ku Klux Klan hate group in the 1970′s. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won best animated feature film, and Free Solo won best documentary.

Each trophy given out at the ceremony (there were a total of 24 this year) is officially called an Academy Award of Merit, but the small golden statues have been known as “Oscars” since the 1930′s. The origin of the nickname is uncertain, but most histories center on Margaret Herrick, a former director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Apparently, upon seeing the statuettes for the first time in 1931, Herrick remarked that they looked a lot like her Uncle Oscar. Oscar became common usage for the award soon after.

March 2, 2018

On March 2, 1933—85 years ago today—the cinematic heavyweight King Kong premiered at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall. One of the most famous monster movies in film history, King Kong then opened to much fanfare three weeks later at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. King Kong the giant ape—billed as the “eighth wonder of the world”—then proceeded to climb cinema screens across the country and around the world. The movie has captured audiences’ imaginations ever since, and it remains a classic adventure story and a masterpiece of animation and trick photography. King Kong was re-released numerous times, inspired a few sequels, and was remade in 1976 and 2005.

King Kong looms over the Manhattan skyline while holding tight to lead actress Fay Wray in the classic monster movie King Kong. The film premiered 85 years ago today on March 2, 1933. Credit: Radio Pictures

The title of the film is the name given to a giant ape called Kong who lives on remote Skull Island. An American film producer leads an expedition to capture the animal and return it to New York City to be put on exhibition. After violent confrontations on the island between the ape and the film crew, the Americans capture Kong and transport him to New York City. There he escapes and goes on a destructive rampage through the city.

King Kong (1933) theatrical release poster. Credit: Radio Pictures

King Kong is actually a variation of the fairy tale about Beauty and the Beast. The ape falls in love with a young woman who accompanies the expedition to Skull Island. On the island, Kong saves the woman from attacks by prehistoric animals. In New York, he kidnaps her and carries her to the top of the Empire State Building, where he is killed by fighter airplanes. The film producer in the movie observes, “It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.”

In King Kong, Fay Wray played the young woman, and Robert Armstrong played the film producer. The co-directors were Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. Willis H. O’Brien supervised the film’s highly praised special effects. King Kong was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress in 1991.

A sequel to King Kong, called Son of Kong, appeared in December 1993, and a similar motion picture, Mighty Joe Young, came out in 1949. Kong crossed the Pacific to Japan to take on another popular movie monster in 1962′s King Kong vs. Godzilla. Kong battled a robot giant ape and other monsters in the 1967 Japanese film King Kong Escapes. Returning to Hollywood, Kong rattled turnstiles again in the 1976 remake, King Kong, a film that featured the World Trade Center towers in place of the Empire State Building in the film’s climactic end scene. Few people remember the 1986 sequel, King Kong Lives, but 2005′s King Kong remake was another smash at the box office. Another sequel, Kong: Skull Island, appeared in 2017. A Godzilla vs. King Kong remake is in the works for 2020.

August 3, 2017

On Monday, July 31, French actress Jeanne Moreau died at her home in Paris, France. A true cinema legend, Moreau debuted on screen in 1949 and went on to star in numerous acclaimed motion pictures. Moreau was best known for her roles in films of the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), a cinema movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Moreau, a captivating actress and individual, was 89 years old.

Jeanne Moreau and Henri Serre in Jules et Jim (1962). Credit: Cinédis

Jeanne Moreau was born in Paris on Jan. 23, 1928. Moreau’s English mother was a dancer, and her French father owned a restaurant. Despite her father’s disapproval, Moreau studied drama at the Conservatoire de Paris. She first appeared on stage in 1947. In 1948, she debuted at the Comédie-Française, a famous state theater in Paris. She began appearing in films in 1949 but continued sporadically on stage into the 1990’s.

Moreau’s first memorable role was in the 1954 gangster film, Touchez pas au grisbi (Hands off the Loot). She played a femme fatale, a troublesome woman character who often causes the downfall of others around her. Moreau thrived in the role, and she played similar characters in later films. Moreau gained international notoriety in the 1958 films Les Amants (The Lovers) and Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows). She won critical acclaim in the 1960 film Moderato Cantabile (Seven Days… Seven Nights) and in the 1961 classic, La Notte (The Night).

Moreau’s most enduring role came as Catherine in François Truffaut’s 1962 motion picture, Jules et Jim (Jules and Jim). Often considered the pinnacle of the Nouvelle Vague, the film rocketed both Moreau and Truffaut to superstar status. Moreau, who was also a talented vocalist, charmed audiences with her tender rendition of the song “Le tourbillon de la vie” (The Whirl of Life) in the film.

Also in 1962, Moreau appeared in the Orson Welles heavyweight, The Trial. (Welles called her the “greatest actress in the world.”) Moreau then starred in such classic films as Eva, La baie des anges (Bay of Angels), Le journal d’une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid), Mademoiselle,Viva Maria! and La mariée était en noir (The Bride Wore Black). Later notable films included Les valseuses (Going Places), The Last Tycoon, Querelle, La vieille qui marchait dans la mer (The Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea), and Bis ans Ende der Welt (Until the End of the World).

Moreau, who also directed three films, received numerous awards over her long career. She was an officer of the Legion of Honor and the first woman inducted into the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (Academy of Fine Arts).

Offscreen, Moreau was a vivacious and outspoken person. She was politically active, and strove for equality—for women, in particular—in all aspects of life. In interviews, she revealed a sharp intelligence and never shied away from a difficult question. In her later years, Moreau’s momentum and joie de vivre (joy of living) never lessened. In 2001, she said, “The cliché is that life is a mountain. You go up, reach the top and then go down. To me, life is going up until you are burned by flames.”

February 28, 2017

It was a night of Oscar firsts on Sunday, February 26, at the 89th Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. But one of those was a first that the Academy would undoubtedly rather forget.

Alex Hibbert, left, stars as the young Chiron in Moonlight. Mahershala Ali, right, won the 2016 Academy Award as best supporting actor for his performance in the film. Moonlight won the 2016 Oscar as best picture.
Credit: © A24

The awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. They are supervised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California. Oscars are awarded in up to 27 categories. 

Last year, the Academy was criticized for the lack of diversity among its award nominees. After the Academy announced its 2015 Oscar nominees in January 2016, it was quickly noted that only white actors and actresses were nominated in the top four acting categories for the second year in a row. Until 2016, there had only been six black directors nominated for Academy Awards.

This year, a number of African Americans made history by their Oscar nominations and wins: This Sunday marked the most Oscar wins by African Americans in one night. Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins, won for best picture. Jenkins was the first African American to be nominated for both best director and one of the screenplay titles for a film that was also nominated for best picture. Featuring an all-black cast, the low-budget film tells the story of a troubled gay African American youth growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami, Florida. The film was based on the semi-autobiographical stage play In Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue, written by Tarell Alvin McCraney. Jenkins and McCraney won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Mahershala Ali won as best supporting actor in the film for his portrayal of a sympathetic drug dealer. The film also received nominations for best director, best supporting actress, best cinematography, best editing, and best original score.

Of the five movies vying for the 2016 best documentary award, four were directed by black filmmakers: 13th, by Ava DuVernay, about the mass incarceration of African Americans in the United States and how it perpetuates the nation’s history of racial inequality; I Am Not Your Negro, by Raoul Peck, about African American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin; Life, Animated, by Roger Ross Williams, about a young autistic man who learns how to communicate with the “outside world” through his love of Walt Disney animated films; and O.J.: Made in America, by Ezra Edelman, about the life of former National Football League star O.J. Simpson, who was arrested for, and later acquitted of, murdering his ex-wife and her friend. Edelman won the award.

With her best supporting actress win on Sunday, Viola Davis became the first African American to win an Oscar, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award for acting. Davis won the Oscar for her portrayal of the long-suffering wife of a sanitation worker who once dreamed of a baseball career in Fences, by the African American playwright August Wilson. Directed by and starring Denzel Washington, the film was also nominated for best picture, best actor for Washington, and best adapted screenplay.

Another notable African American film that received multiple nominations was Hidden Figures, the true story of a team of African American women mathematicians who played a vital role in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the early years of the U.S. space program. The film was nominated for best picture, best supporting actress for Octavia Spencer, and best adapted screenplay.

The night’s other big winner was the musical La La Land. Starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, the film tells the story of a jazz pianist who falls in love with an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, California. It was tied with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997) as the most nominated film ever, with 14 nominations. Damien Chazelle won as best director for the film and Stone won as best actress. The film also won for best cinematography, best original song, and best production design. Casey Affleck won the best actor award for his performance in the drama Manchester by the Sea as a man who is asked to take care of his teenaged nephew after the boy’s father dies.

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling star in the musical La La Land. Stone won the 2016 Oscar as best actress for her performance in the film as an aspiring actress.
Credit: © Summit Entertainment

The night’s historical significance was nearly overshadowed by an embarrassing blunder at the end of the evening when the best picture Oscar was announced. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, who starred together in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), presented the award. Beatty was given an envelope containing the name of the winner of the best actress award and the film for which she won, instead of the title of the film that won for best picture. Dunaway announced the winner as La La Land. As the cast of La La Land gathered on stage to celebrate winning the evening’s biggest award, the film’s producers Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt were approached by a man wearing a headset. “I’m sorry, there’s a mistake,” Horowitz announced. “Moonlight, you guys won best picture.” Platt added: “This is not a joke. They read the wrong thing.”

Hosting the awards for the first time, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, of the late-night television talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” joked “Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this,” referring to the TV host’s infamous Miss Universe gaffe in 2015 when he announced the wrong contestant’s name as winner. As the stunned cast of Moonlight made its way to the stage, the evening ended in confusion, but apparently with no hard feelings. “God, I love Moonlight so much,” Oscar winner Stone said later backstage. “I was so excited for Moonlight.”

Other Behind the Headlines posts:

• Birdman Soars at 87th Academy Awards (Feb. 23, 2015) – A Behind the Headlines article
• Megastar Monday: The 88th Academy Awards (Feb. 29, 2016) – A Behind the Headlines article
•  See also Back in time articles for Motion picture from 1922 through 2015

February 29, 2016

The 88th Academy Awards were presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, last night, following one of the most controversial Oscars seasons in recent memory. The Academy Awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. The awards are supervised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California. Oscars are awarded in up to 27 categories.

Academy Awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. Winners of an Academy Award receive a gold-plated statue commonly called an Oscar, shown here. Credit: © Richard Levine, Alamy Images

Spotlight won for best picture of the year. The film tells the true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Roman Catholic Archdiocese. Alejandro González Iñárritu won the Oscar as best director for The Revenant, about a frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820′s who fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. It was the Mexican director’s second Oscar win in a row for best director. Iñárritu won as best director in 2015 for Birdman. Leonardo DiCaprio won the Academy Award as best actor for his performance as the lead in The Revenant. It was the actor’s first Oscar win after five other nominations. Brie Larson received the Academy Award as best actress for her performance as a woman who is abducted, held against her will, raped, and gives birth to a boy in Room. Mark Rylance won the best supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of a man who is captured for espionage against the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union (now Russia) during the Cold War in Bridge of Spies. The Academy Award for best supporting actress went to Alicia Vikander for her performance as the wife of a transgender pioneer in The Danish Girl. The night’s big winner was Mad Max: Fury Road, with six awards, for costume design, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, production design, sound editing, and sound mixing.

A number of Hollywood’s most prominent African American stars boycotted the Oscars ceremony to protest the Academy’s lack of diversity. After the Academy announced its Oscar nominees on January 14, it was quickly noted that only white actors and actresses were nominated in the top four acting categories for the second year in a row. The Twitter hashtag #OscarSoWhite, which began last year, soon saw a resurgence among users of the social networking website. Among the most outspoken Hollywood celebrities calling for a boycott were director Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith. On January 18, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, Pinkett Smith announced on Facebook and Lee announced on Instragram that they would not attend the Oscars ceremony with their spouses. Lee’s film Chi-Raq failed to win any nominations, while Pinkett Smith’s husband, Will Smith, who had been expected by some to be a best actor contender for his turn in the biopic Concussion, was also snubbed for an Oscar. Other notable omissions were British actor Idris Elba, who was projected to secure a best supporting actor nomination for his performance as an African warlord in Beasts of No Nation; Michael B. Jordan, who portrayed a boxer in the Rocky sequel Creed; and the cast of the biopic Straight Outta Compton, about the influential rap group N.W.A.

Many protesters called for the evening’s host, African American comedian and actor Chris Rock, to join the boycott. Instead Rock, who had also hosted the awards in 2005, made the Academy’s lack of diversity the focus of his humorous opening monologue and the butt of many of his jokes and bits during the evening. On Jan. 22, 2016, the Academy announced that it would overhaul its membership in order to promote diversity, aiming to double its number of female and minority members by the year 2020.

Other World Book articles:

• Birdman Soars at 87th Academy Awards (February 23, 2015) – A Behind the Headlines article
• See also Back in time articles for Motion picture from 1922 through 2014

February 1, 2016

The 61st Filmfare Awards were presented on January 15 at the Yash Raj Studio in Mumbai, India. The awards are presented annually for artistic and technical excellence in filmmaking in the Hindi language. Filmfare Awards are announced for motion pictures made during the previous year. The Filmfare Awards have often been referred to as the Hindi film industry’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. The Academy Awards are the best-known film awards and are presented annually in Hollywood. The name for the motion-picture industry in India is Bollywood. Although many of the faces on the Filmfare Awards stage may not be familiar to most American audience members, Bollywood actors are among the most famous and most-recognized megastars in the world.

Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, and Privanka Chopra, left to right, star in the Indian epic historical romance Bajirao Mastani, The film won nine Filmfare Awards in 2016. Credit: © SLB Films

The epic historical romance Bajirao Mastani, one of the highest grossing Indian films of all time, dominated the night with nine awards. Based on the Marathi novel Raau by Nagnath S. Inamdar, the film tells the story of the Maratha Peshwa Bajirao (1700-1740) and his Muslim wife Mastani. Marathas are Hindu people who live in the central and southwestern parts of India. Bajirao Mastani won for best film, and its director, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, won for best director. Ranveer Singh won for best actor and Priyanka Chopra won for best supporting actress in that film. Chopra may be familiar to American television audiences for her portrayal of Alex Parrish, an FBI recruit who is suspected of a terrorist attack, in the popular ABC crime drama Quantico. Shreya Ghoshal won for best female playback singer for the song “Deewani Mastani” in Bajirao Mastani. A playback singer is someone whose voice is used in a movie in place of that of the actor or actress. Bajirao Mastani also won for best costume, best choreography, best production design, and best action.

The cross-generational hit comedy Piku was the night’s other big winner with five awards. Deepika Padukone, who was also the female lead in Bajirao Mastani, won for best actress in Piku. In that film, Padukone plays the daughter of a grumpy father, portrayed by Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, who won the critics award for best actor for his role. Piku also won for best background score and best screenplay, as well as the critics award for best film. Anil Kapoor won for best supporting actor for his performance in the romantic drama Dil Dhadakne Do.

The Indian magazine Filmfare presents the awards. Filmfare is an English-language magazine about Indian cinema. It is the oldest film magazine in India. Winners of a Filmfare Award receive a black statue, generally made of bronze, depicting a woman with her arms raised in a traditional Indian dance pose.

The Filmfare Awards were first presented in 1954. Filmfare Awards South are the South Indian version of the Filmfare Awards. These awards are presented annually for movies in the Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu languages. Filmfare Awards South are also presented by Filmfare and were first awarded in 1954. The first Filmfare Awards East were presented in 2014. These awards recognize movies in the Assamese, Bengali, and Odia languages.

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• Dixit, Madhuri
• India, Languages of
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• Kapoor, Raj
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• Khanna, Rajesh
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