Gawad Urian Award
| Gawad Urian Awards | |
|---|---|
 39th Gawad Urian Awards
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| Awarded for | Outstanding achievements in Filipino cinema |
| Country | Philippines |
| Presented by | Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino |
| First awarded | 1977 |
| Official website | www |
The Gawad Urian Awards are annual film awards in the Philippines held since 1977. It is given by the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (the Filipino Film Critics) and is currently regarded as the counterpart of the United States' New York Film Critics Circle. Due to its credible choices of winners, it is considered the most prestigious film awards in the Philippines.
The MPP was formed by a host of scholars, film writers and other award-winning writers on May 1, 1976 as a critics' voice to rival the then-only award-giving body in the Philippines, which is its Oscars', the FAMAS Awards. Three years earlier, what would be the members of the MPP were included in the judges' roster of the FAMAS after a shocking 1972 Best Actress tie materialized between major star Boots Anson-Roa and then-rising star Vilma Santos. A tie was unheard of at that time, which resulted in accusations of lessening prestige on the part of FAMAS. After a voting stint at the FAMAS, these future MPP members set up the Gawad Urian Awards.
The members of the MPP who judge the annual Gawad Urian are all accomplished writers in their part:
The Gawad Urian Awards were established to, in Tagalog, "suriin ang mga pelikulang Pilipino, pasiglahin ang diyalogo ng mga manonood at ng industriya ng pelikula, pag-aralan ang mga tunguhing makapagpapahusay sa pelikula, at linangin ang kaalaman sa tungkulin ng pelikula bilang medyum ng ekspresyon at komunikasyon, ayon sa mga kondisyon ng paggawa ng pelikula sa ating bayan (examine Filipino films, bolster the interest of the masses and the Philippine film industry, study and celebrate the achievement that will help define the good Filipino film, and cultivate the knowledge and skills that the film medium was designed for, which is to be a medium of communication and expression of our culture according to the standards and conditions of filmmaking in our country)."
The MPP then chose the name "urian" for its awards An urian is a standard for gold in Tagalog. Gawad, on the other hand, is the Tagalog word for "award." Due to this choice, the Gawad Urian became the first and the only major award-giving body in the Philippines (the others being the FAMAS Awards, the Luna Awards and the Star Awards for Movies) to use the vernacular in awards shows and in the presentation of the awards.
The Gawad Urian is given in twelve categories and have been annually awarded since 1977. In 1988, the awards for the films of 1987 were not held because the MPP deemed that there was a "lack of deserving winners," which was a first in Filipino awards history. The fourteen categories of the awards, named in Tagalog, are the following:
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