In a dramatic development, 10 prominent filmmakers on Wednesday returned to the government various awards and honours they had received, protesting impediments to freedom of speech and expression and showing solidarity with the agitating FTII students here.

They are Anand Patwardhan, Dipankar Banerjee, Paresh Kamdar, Nishtha Jain, Kirti Nakhwa, Harshavardhan Kulkarni, Hari Nair, Rakesh Sharma, Indraneel Lahiri and Lipika Singh Darai.