The 39th National Film Awards were presented by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, to felicitate the best of Indian Cinema released in the year 1991, with the ceremony taking place in 1992.
With the 39th National Film Awards, two new awards were introduced for the feature films section. These awards include the National Film Award for Best Special Effects and the National Film Award for Best Choreography and were awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). These two newly introduced awards were not given for 39th National Film Awards as no films/entries were found to be suitable.
Also, the National Film Award for Best Writing on Cinema and the National Film Award for Best Film Critic, which were until then awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus), were awarded with Swarna Kamal (Golden Lotus).
Awards were divided into feature films, non-feature films, and books written on Indian cinema.
Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 39th National Film Awards, a Bengali film, Agantuk won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film also winning the maximum number of awards (3) along with a Malayalam film, Bharatham and a Hindi film, Dharavi. Following were the awards given in each category:
A committee headed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan was appointed to evaluate the feature films awards. Following were the jury members:
Following were the awards given:
Official Name: Swarna Kamal
All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.
Official Name: Rajat Kamal
All the awardees are awarded with 'Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.
The award is given to best film in the regional languages in India.
Short Films made in any Indian language and certified by the Central Board of Film Certification as a documentary/newsreel/fiction are eligible for non-feature film section.
A committee headed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta was appointed to evaluate the non-feature films awards. Following were the jury members:
Official Name: Swarna Kamal
All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.
Official Name: Rajat Kamal
All the awardees are awarded with 'Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)' and cash prize.
The awards aim at encouraging study and appreciation of cinema as an art form and dissemination of information and critical appreciation of this art-form through publication of books, articles, reviews etc.
A committee headed by Kamleshwar was appointed to evaluate the writing on Indian cinema. Following were the jury members:
Official Name: Swarna Kamal
All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)' and cash prize.
Following were the awards not given as no film was found to be suitable for the award: