West Bengal Chief Minister Ms Mamata Banerjee today gave away the annual Mahanayak Samman awards at Nazrul Mancha to felicitate the actors and technicians of the Bengali film industry.
“It is our honour to felicitate the veterans. We instituted Banga Bibhushan awards, Sangeet Samman, Tele Samman to felicitate our cultural icons,” WB CM said.
The awards were instituted in the year 2012, on the initiative of the Chief, in the memory of the legendary actor Mahanayak Uttam Kumar.
Veteran actors Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Rituparna Sengupta were conferred Mahanayak and Mahanayika Samman. Lifetime achievement awards were conferred on veterans Paran Bandyopadhyay, Anjan Dutta, Sandhya Roy, Chiranjeet Chakraborty, director Utpalendu Chakraborty.
Special awards were given to actors Debalina Roy, Rajatabha Dutta, Dulal Sarkar, Dulal Lahiri, Rahul Bandyopadhyay, Abhishek Chatterjee, Tanushree Chakraborty, Sreelekha Mitra, Biswanath Basu.
Composer Shantanu Moitra was conferred a special award along with director Shiboprosad Mukhopadhyay, cinematographers Gopi Bhagat and Sudip Chattopadhyay. Art director Indranil Ghosh was also felicitated on the occasion.
Calling Uttam Kumar a nostalgia, WB CM prided the fact that Bengal is the cultural capital of the world. “Culture unites everyone. No one can create a rift in the world of art,” she said.
WB CM said she was confident one day Tollywood will give tough competition to Hollywood.