Updated On: 18 August, 2024 07:41 AM IST | Mumbai | Priyanka Sharma
With Uunchai winning two National Awards, Sooraj Barjatya and Neena Gupta share their humble reactions to the recognition

Neena Gupta won the Best Supporting Actor award
Thirty years ago, filmmaker Sooraj Barjatya and actor Neena Gupta received their first National Award honours for Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Woh Chokri (1994), respectively. On Friday, they received their second National Award, this time for Uunchai (2022)—a film they collaborated on. The relationship drama earned Barjatya the Best Director honour, while Gupta won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 70th National Awards.
The award is particularly special for Barjatya as Uunchai marked his comeback after a seven-year gap. “When I was writing a film for Salman Khan, a voice inside me told me to make Uunchai. I felt it was time to offer movies that [come] from my soul rather than trying to make what sells. Uunchai is the most layered film that I have made. In my films, I usually take up happy moments of life and create a happy [movie] around it. This is the first time that I had a clear story with such strong and layered characters,” he says of the film, which also stars Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Danny Denzongpa, Parineeti Chopra, and Sarika. Barjatya recalls a journalist once telling him that stories of friendship are usually made with youngsters but rarely with older people.