MUMBAI: Zee Gaurav, the benchmark for excellence in Marathi films and theatre industry organized its annual awards ceremony for 2008. In its ninth year now, Zee Gaurav has brought back competition and encouraged brilliance and talent in the Marathi industry since its establishment.

This year, Zee Gaurav has announced awards to personalities for outstanding performance from 20 categories in films, 12 categories in commercial plays and six categories in experimental plays. Zee Marathi has felicitated versatile theatre personality Damoo Kenkare, singer Suman Kalyanpur and music director Dashrath Pujari for the lifetime achievement award, the Zee Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar.

The Marathi Paul Padate Pudhe Award was given to block buster Taare Zameen Par fame Amol Gupte for his outstanding performance in Bollywood.

The jury comprised director Satish Randive, Mangesh Kulkarni, Vidyadhar Pathare and Ujjwal Nirgudkar for films; Dr. Hemu Adhikari Suresh Khare and Satish Pulekar for commercial plays; and Sushma Deshpande, Achyut Vaze and Vijay Kenkare for experimental plays. The Board of Governors comprised Dr. Jabbar Patel, N. Chandra, Kamalakar Sontakke and Jayant Salgaonkar for Zee Gaurav 2008.

Zee Gaurav event will be aired on Zee Marathi on 17 February at 7.30 pm.