The 45th National Film Awards, presented by Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of Indian Cinema released in the year 1997. The awards were announced on 8 May 1998 and presented on 10 July 1998 by then President of India, K. R. Narayanan.
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 National Film Awards, a Kannada film, Thaayi Saheba won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film also winning the maximum number of awards (4). Following were the awards given in each category:
A committee headed by B. Saroja Devi 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 K. K. Kapil 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 Chidananda Dasgupta 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: