IIFA Awards 2008: And the winners are…

Spicezee Bureau Bangkok, June 09: The three-day star packed IIFA Awards 2008 extravaganza, which drew to a close on Sunday in the Thai capital Bangkok, proved to be an event of its kind and is surely getting bigger and better year after year. The event that kick-started with a bang as the who’s who of the Indian film industry walked down the red carpet followed by the premieres of Bollywood’s most awaited films this year ‘Sarkar Raj’, concluded with fireworks as the most sought after awards were announced. Though the event has been much criticised for promoting the Bachchan family, the IIFA Awards once again proved their credibility, as the trophies were bagged by the most deserving nominees. And without much ado here is a look at this year’s award highlight: Best Film A category that had some of the best pictures of the previous year like Guru, Jab We Met, Partner and Life In A Metro vying for the number one spot, saw the much acclaimed Shah Rukh Khan starrer `Chak De India` bagging the prestigious award. Best Director `Chak De India` surely swept the IIFA grand awards ceremony as director Shimit Amin lifted the Best Director trophy. The film about a coach inspiring the Indian women`s hockey team to World Cup victory also won awards for story and screenplay. Best Actor Well, Big B may bag the prize for blogger of the year but it is King Khan who earned the award for the Best Actor for his mind boggling performance in Chak De India where his role was much inspired by the real life hockey hero Mir Ranjan Negi. Best Actress Yes, the ‘Koi doubt mat rakhna’ bodylicious babe from Jab We Met, Kareena Kapoor added yet another trophy to her bag full of awards for her refreshing youthful performance in `Jab We Met`. Best Debutant Male and Female The hottest young couple in tinsel town, Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, surely got the maximum eyeballs as they got on the stage to collect their respective awards. While, Ranbir thanked mentor Sanjay Leela Bhansali for his award, Dips once again recited her accepting speech mentioning Farah Khan - the brain behind ‘Om Shanti Om’. Best Style Icon (Male) He might not have the six pack abs or the sizzling off shirt item numbers to his credit, nevertheless actor Abhishek Bachchan earned the Best Style Icon award for his raunchy masculine beard look. Best Style Icon (Female) We don’t know whether she is the ‘Most Sexy Women in the World’ or not, but Katrina is surely the most stylish woman of B-town The sultry beauty won the Best Style Icon for her sensuous and inspiring style. Best Performance in a Negative Role Actor Viveik Oberoi won the bad man award for his role in the flick, ‘Shootout At Lokhandwala’. Best Screenplay Anurag Basu - `Life in a Metro` and Jaideep Sahni - `Chak De! India’ shared the best screenplay award. The two movies also jointly won the best story trophy. Best Cinematography The award for the Best Cinematography went to `Chak De! India`, making it the maximum award garnering movie in IIFA 2008. Best Dialogues Debutant director ‘Imtiaz Ali’ bagged the award for writing one of the most memorable dialogues in recent history for ’Jab We Met’. Music Direction AR Rahman won the award for his chartbuster number ‘Barso Re’ in Mani Ratnam’s `Guru`. Best Lyrics Javed Akhtar’s beautiful melody of words in the song ‘Main Agar Kahoon’ from ‘Om Shanti Om’ won him the award in this category. Playback Singer (Male) The ever so charming singer Shaan bagged this one for ‘Jabse Tere Naina’ in the movie ‘Saawariya’. Playback Singer (Female) Youth melody queen ‘Shreya Ghoshal’ bagged the trophy for her melodious singing of ‘Barso Re’ in Guru. Best Performance in a Comic Role Govinda, who is popularly known as Chi-Chi, was surely in his element as he went to grab this one for his performance in Partner. Fresh face of the year Bollywood’s latest eye candy, Neil Nitin Mukesh was named the Fresh Face of the Year.