| National Film Award for Best First Non-Feature Film of a Director | |
| Subheader: | National award for contributions to Short films |
| Awarded For: | Best debutant directorial work for a short film of a year |
| Sponsor: | Directorate of Film Festivals |
| Firstawarded: | 1991 (Instituted in 1989) |
| Lastawarded: | 2018 |
| Holder Label: | Most recent winner |
| Holder: | Feluda 50 Years Rays Detective |
| Award1 Type: | Total awarded |
| Award1 Winner: | 29 |
| Award2 Type: | First winner |
| Award2 Winner: | Bazar Sitaram |
The National Film Award for Best First Non-Feature Film of a Director is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Silver Lotus (Rajat Kamal).
The award was instituted in 1989, at 37th National Film Awards and awarded annually for films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages.
Award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus) and cash prize. Following are the award winners over the years:
| Indicates a joint award for that year |
| List of award recipients, showing the year, film(s), language(s), producer(s), director(s) and citation | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film(s) | Language(s) | Producer(s) | Director(s) | Citation | ||
| 1991 | Kamlabai | Marathi Hindi | Reena Mohan | Reena Mohan | [1] | ||
| 1992 | Knock-Out | Tamil | B. Lenin | B. Lenin | [2] | ||
| 1993 | Bazar Sitaram | Hindi | Neena Gupta for Films Division | Neena Gupta | [3] | ||
| 1994 | A Little War | Hindi | FTII | Atanu Biswas | [4] | ||
| 1995 | All Alone If Need Be | English | Amulya Kakati | Ranjit Das | [5] | ||
| 1996 | Yeh Woh Sahar To Nahin | Hindi | FTII | Sudhakar Rao | [6] | ||
| 1997 | Mizhavu – A Silent Drum Beat | English | P. D. Raphel | K. R. Subhash | [7] | ||
| 1998 | Repentance | Malayalam | Mohan Agashe for Films Division | Rajeev Raj | [8] | ||
| 1999 | Deivangal Padiyirangumbol (When Gods Depart) | Tamil | Pradeep Kumar | Pradeep Kumar | [9] | ||
| 2000 | Meena Jha | Hindi | Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute | Anjalika Sharma | [10] | ||
| 2001 | Diary of a Housewife | Malayalam | Asha Joseph Vinod Sukumaran | Vinod Sukumaran | [11] | ||
| 2002 | Paramapatham | Tamil | Film and Television Institute of Tamil Nadu | Prabhu Radhakrishnan | [12] | ||
| Beyond or Within | English | P. T. M. Payyoli | Vinod Mankara | ||||
| 2003 | An Encounter with a Life Living | Hindi English | Vinu Abraham | Suja | [13] | ||
| 2004 | Ek Sagar Kinaree... A Seaside Story | Marathi English | Gomantak Marathi Academy | Laxmikant Shetgaonkar | [14] | ||
| 2005 | John and Jane | English | Ashim Ahluwalia | Ashim Ahluwalia | [15] | ||
| 2006 | Andhiyum | Malayalam | N. Dinesh Rajkumar | Jacob Varghese | [16] | ||
| 2007 | Lal Juto | Bengali | Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute | Shweta Merchant | [17] | ||
| 2008 | Vitthal | Marathi | Vinoo Choliparambil Manu Pushpendran | Vinoo Choliparambil | [18] | ||
| 2009 | Vaishnav Jan Toh | Hindi | FTII | Kaushal Oza | [19] | ||
| Ekti Kaktaliyo Golpo | Bengali | FTII | Tathagata Singha | ||||
| 2010 | Pistulya | Marathi Telugu | Nagraj Manjule | Nagraj Manjule | [20] | ||
| 2011 | The Silent Poet | Meitei | Borun Thokchom | Borun Thokchom | [21] | ||
| 2012 | Eka Gachha Eka Manisa Eka Samudra | Oriya | Veenu Bhushan Vaid | Lipika Singh Darai | [22] | ||
| 2013 | Kanyaka | Malayalam | Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute | Christo Tomy | [23] | ||
| 2014 | Goonga Pehelwan | Drishti Media | Mit Jani Prateek Gupta Vivek Chaudhary | [24] | |||
| 2015 | Daaravtha | Marathi | Nishantroy Bombarde | Nishantroy Bombarde | [25] | ||
| 2016 | Soz...A Ballad of Maladies | Rajiv Mehrotra | Tushar Madhav | [26] | |||
| 2017 | Water Baby | Varun Shah | Pia Shah | ||||
| 2018 | Sagnik Chatterjee | Sagnik Chatterjee | |||||