Veteran film director Mani Ratnam's 'Ponniyan Selvam' has received the National Award for the Best Tamil Film of the Year 2022. He has been given this award at the 70th National Film Awards ceremony. President Draupadi Murmu presented this award to him at the 70th National Film Awards ceremony held at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi on Tuesday. Ponniyan Selvam is based on a very popular historical novel. The film received a lot of praise for its direction, story and grandeur.

After receiving the award, the director spoke to ANI about the importance of the story and the pride of bringing it to the big screen. He said, "It is a big classic, written in Tamil and it is also very popular. It is a very favourite Tamil literature and I am very happy that I managed to make a film on it."

This Tamil language film directed by the great Mani Ratnam was a huge hit in Tamil Nadu and among the Tamil diaspora around the world. It is based on a fictional novel written by Kalki Krishnamurthy, which was based on the life of Rajaraja I, the famous emperor of the Chola Empire. The film also performed well in its Hindi, Telugu and Kannada dubbed versions across India. Produced by Ratnam and Allirajah Subaskaran under Madras Talkies and Lyca Productions, the film was released in two parts, of which this is the first part.

Many great actors were seen in the film. Many great artists like popular South actor Vikram, Jayam Ravi, Karthi, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Trisha Krishnan, Aishwarya Lakshmi, Shobhita Dhulipala, Prabhu, R. Sarathkumar, Vikram Prabhu, Jayaram, Prakash Raj, Rahman and R. Parthiban have worked in the film. The music of the film is given by AR Rahman. Its second part 'Ponniyin Selvan 2' was also released the very next year after the release of the original film.