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

The National Film Award for Best Direction 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 Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus).

National Film Award for Best Direction
National award for contributions to non-feature films
Awarded for	Excellence in cinematic direction achievement
Sponsored by	National Film Development Corporation of India
Reward(s)	Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus) ₹3,00,000
First award	2000
Final award	2023
Most recent winner	Piyush Thakur
Highlights
Total awarded	18
First winner	Arun Vasant Khopkar

The award was instituted in 2000, at 48th National Film Awards and awarded annually for films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages.

Winners

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

List of award recipients, showing the year (award ceremony), film(s) and language(s)
Year	Director(s)	Film(s)	Language(s)	Refs.
2000 (48th)	Arun Vasant Khopkar	Rasikpriya	• Hindi  • English	[1]
2001 (49th)	Buddhadeb Dasgupta	Jorasanko Thakurbari	English	[2]
2002 (50th)	Anjali Panjabi	A Few Things I Know About Her	English	[3]
2003 (51st)	Arvind Sinha	Kaya Poochhe Maya Se	Hindi	[4]
2004 (52nd)	Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni	Girni	Marathi	[5]
2005 (53rd)	Ganesh Shankar Gaikwad	Voices Across the Oceans	• English  • Hindi	[6]
2006 (54th)	Ramesh Asher	Ek Aadesh – Command For Choti	Hindi	[7]
2007 (55th)	Jayaraj	Vellapokkathil	Malayalam	[8]
2008 (56th)	Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni	Three of Us	Only Music	[9]
2009 (57th)	No Award			[10]
2010 (58th)	Arunima Sharma	Shyam Raat Seher	Hindi	[11]
2011 (59th)	Iram Ghufran	There is Something in the Air	• Hindi  • Urdu  • English	[12]
2012 (60th)	Vikrant Pawar	Kaatal	Marathi	[13]
2013 (61st)	Pranjal Dua	Chidiya Udh	–	[14]
2014 (62nd)	Renu Savant	Aaranyak	• Marathi  • English	[15]
2015 (63rd)	Christo Tomy	Kamuki	Malayalam	[16]
2016 (64th)	Aaditya Jambhale	Aaba... Aiktaay Na?	Marathi	[17]
2017 (65th)	Nagraj Manjule	Pavasacha Nibandha	Marathi
2018 (66th)	Gautam Vaze	Aai Shappath
2019 (67th)	Sudhanshu Saria	Knock Knock Knock	• English  • Bengali	[18]
2020 (68th)	R V Ramani	Oh That’s Bhanu	• English  • Tamil  • Malayalam  • Hindi	[19]
2021 (69th)	Bakul Matiyani	Smile Please	Hindi	[20]
2022 (70th)	Miriam Chandy Menacherry	From the Shadows	• English  • Bengali  • Hindi	[21]
2023 (71st)	Piyush Thakur	The First Film	Hindi	[22]