An award-winning Malayalam director has decided to boycott the National Film Awards in Delhi in protest against the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the government’s intention of implementing the National Register of Citizens countrywide.

Zakariya Mohammed was to receive the 2019 award for the best Malayalam movie for his debut film Sudani From Nigeria at the ceremony, scheduled on December 23.

“I, as the director of Sudani From Nigeria, scriptwriter Mohsin Parari and the producers will stay away from the National Film Awards function in protest at the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the NRC,” Zakariya wrote on his Facebook wall on Sunday.

Sudani From Nigeria is the story of a Nigerian player hired by a group of die-hard football fans from Malappuram, north Kerala, to represent their club at a local seven-a-side tournament.

The low-budget film featuring Nigerian actor Samuel Abiola Robinson has been a box-office hit and has won critical acclaim and several awards.

Messages of appreciation for Zakariya’s stand have poured in. “Your stand is just like Sudani From Nigeria… both extremely beautiful,” commented Mohammed Rafi Kottukadu on Facebook.

“A real artist is one who continuously clashes with society,” commented one Rakesh T. Bhaskar.

Sameer Tahir, co-producer of Sudani from Nigeria, confirmed to The Telegraph that he and fellow co-producer Shyju Khalid would boycott the awards ceremony.

“We have received invitations to attend the December 23 ceremony but will not attend it,” Tahir said.

This is not the first boycott of the National Film Awards event.

On May 3, 2018, some 55 awardees had skipped the ceremony after learning that unlike previous years, the President would give away only the top 11 of the 100-plus awards, leaving then information and broadcasting minister Smriti Irani to hand over the rest.

These awardees wrote to the directorate of film festivals that they were not “boycotting the awards” but felt “dejected rather than honoured for our work” because of how these were to be handed over.

The fiasco apparently left President Ram Nath Kovind’s office miffed with Irani’s then ministry for shifting the entire blame for the fiasco to it.

The ministry had said it was the President’s decision to give away only some of the awards, and that it had been informed only a couple of days before the awards programme, by which time the invitations had been sent out.

But Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson Ashok Malik said the President had made it clear three weeks in advance that he could only spare an hour for any event because of the number of engagements he had daily.

“What was to be done within the hour is for the ministry and the department concerned to decide,” he said.