National Film Award for Best Cinematography (non-feature film)

The National Film Award for Best Cinematography is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the National Film Development Corporation of India. It is one of several awards presented for non-feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus).

National Film Award for Best Cinematography
National award for contributions to non-feature films
Sponsored by	National Film Development Corporation of India
Reward(s)	Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus) ₹2,00,000
First award	1990
Final award	2023
Most recent winner	Saravanamaruthu Soundarapandi Meenakshi Soman
Highlights
Total awarded	80
First winner	• Santosh Sivan (Cameraman)  • Prasad Film Laboratories (Laboratory Processing)

The award was instituted in 1990, at 38th National Film Awards and awarded annually for short films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages. Since the 70th National Film Awards (2022), the primary/main cinematographer is eligible to the award, thus eliminating the existing Cameraman and Laboratory Processing sub-categories.^[1]

Winners

Award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus) and cash prize. Following are the award winners over the years:

Indicates a joint award for that year

1991–2021

List of award recipients, showing the year (award ceremony), film(s) and language(s)
Year	Cameraman(s)	Laboratory Processing	Film(s)	Language(s)	Refs.
1990 (38th)	Santosh Sivan	Prasad Film Laboratories	Mohiniyattam	English	[2]
	Victor Banerjee	Prasad Film Laboratories	Where No Journeys End	English
1991 (39th)	Shekar Dattari	Prasad Film Laboratories	Silent Valley: An Indian Rain forest	English	[3]
1992 (40th)	Soumendu Roy	Adlabs	Sucitra Mitra	Bengali	[4]
1993 (41st)	Piyush Shah	–	Moksha	Bengali	[5]
1994 (42nd)	Anoop Jotwani	Vijay Color Lab	Rasayatra	• Hindi  • English	[6]
1995 (43rd)	Rafey Mehmood	Adlabs	Tarana	Hindi	[7]
1996 (44th)	Hari Nair	Prasad Film Laboratories	Sham's Vision	English	[8]
1997 (45th)	Ashok Dasgupta	–	The Trail	English	[9]
1998 (46th)	Ranjan Palit	Prasad Film Laboratories	In The Forest Hangs a Bridge	English	[10]
1999 (47th)	Mankada Ravi Varma	Prasad Film Laboratories	Kalamandalam Gopi	Malayalam	[11]
2000 (48th)	Prasann Jain	Adlabs	Rasikpriya	• Hindi  • English	[12]
2001 (49th)	Nilotpal Sarkar	Prasad Film Laboratory	Jorasanko Thakurbari	English	[13]
	Irom Maipak	Prasad Kalinga Lab	The Monpas of Arunachal Pradesh	English
2002 (50th)	No Award				[14]
2003 (51st)	Ranjan Palit	Prasad Film Laboratory	Kaya Poochhe Maya Se	Hindi	[15]
	K. G. Jayan	Prasad Film Laboratory	The 18 Elephants: 3 Monologues	Malayalam
2004 (52nd)	Manoj Raymond Lobo	Adlabs	Girni	Marathi	[16]
2005 (53rd)	Paramvir Singh	Adlabs	Parsiwada, Tarapore Present Day	• English  • Gujarati	[17]
2006 (54th)	Rajendra Janglay	–	Raga of River Narmada	–	[18]
	Sanjay V.
2007 (55th)	Savita Singh	–	Kramasha	Hindi	[19]
2008 (56th)	Shariqva Badar Khan	Filmlab	Three of Us	–	[20]
	Jaya Krishna Gummadi	Adlabs	When This Man Dies	• Hindi  • English
2009 (57th)	Deepu S. Unni	Adlabs	Gaarud	• Hindi  • Marathi	[21]
2010 (58th)	Murali G.	Filmlab	Shyam Raat Seher	• Hindi  • English	[22]
2011 (59th)	S. Nallamuthu	–	Tiger Dynasty	English	[23]
2012 (60th)	Abhimanyu Dange	Reliance MediaWorks	Kaatal	Marathi	[24]
	Raja Shabir Khan	–	Shepherds of Paradise	• Gojri  • Urdu
2013 (61st)	Kavin Jagtiani	Reliance MediaWorks	Mandrake !Mandrake !	Hindi	[25]
2014 (62nd)	Indraneel Lahiri	–	Aamaar Katha: Story of Binodini	Bengali	[26]
2015 (63rd)	Amartya Bhattacharyya	–	Benaras: The Unexplored Attachments	Bengali	[27]
2016 (64th)	Alpesh Nagar	–	Kalpvriksha	Hindi	[28]
	Vishal Sangwai		Adnyat	English
2017 (65th)	Appu Prabhakar	–	Eye Test	–	[29]
	Arnold Fernandes		Dawn	–
2018 (66th)	Ajay Bedi	–	The Secret Life of Frogs	–	[30]
2019 (67th)	Savita Singh	–	Sonsi	Hindi	[31]
2020 (68th)	Nikhil S Praveen	–	Shabdikkunna Kalappa (Talking Plow)	Malayalam	[32]
2021 (69th)	Bittu Rawat	–	Pataal-Tee	Bhotiya	[33]

2022–present

Since the 70th National Film Awards, cinematographer alone is awarded.

List of award recipients, showing the year (award ceremony), film(s) and language(s)
Year	Recipient(s)	Film(s)	Language(s)	Refs.
2022 (70th)	Siddharth Diwan	Mono No Aware	• Hindi  • English	[34]
2023 (71st)	Saravanamaruthu Soundarapandi Meenakshi Soman	Little Wings	Tamil	[35]