New Delhi, Apr 9 (UNI) Filmmaker Zoya Akhtar and acclaimed actress Vidya Balan on Tuesday, announced the nominations for first Critics Choice Film Awards.

Apart from Zoya Akhtar and Vidya Balan, Raja Sen, Shubha Shetty, Bhawana Somaaya and Rahul Desai were present to announce the nominations.

After a successful outing at the Critics' Choice Short Film Awards, the Film Critics Guild and Motion Content Group have joined hands once again to present the first-ever Critics Choice Film Awards, a pan-India awards body, which is the only title after the prestigious National Film awards to award filmmaking in eight major languages.

The awards will be a celebration of the best of Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam cinema.

In December 2018, the Film Critics Guild and Motion Content Group collaborated to announce a one of its kind Critics Choice Short Film Awards. With entries coming in from all parts of the country, a panel comprising of India's top film critics who first curated and shortlisted the nominees.

The Guild as a whole then voted for and felicitated the best short films from across the country with the aim of acknowledging and appreciating the rising growth of the industry as a whole.

While the short film awards were decided based on entries by filmmakers, the Critics’ Choice Film Awards will decide on nominees and winners based on theatrical releases from the year 2018.

With the participation of credible film critics from all over India, the Critics’ Choice Film Awards aim to honor films based on the art of filmmaking as opposed to mere popularity.

The ceremony of Critics Choice Film Awards will take place on April 21.

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