Bengali quotient in national awards enthuses filmmakers

Kolkata, July 14 (IANS) A strong Bengali presence in this year's national film awards has come as a morale booster for the film fraternity here which believes in carrying forward the rich tradition of Satyajit Ray and Ritwick Ghatak.

While habitual National Award winner Buddhadeb Dasgupta was selected best director for his film "Swapner Din", predominantly Bengali filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh sprang a surprise by bagging the best feature film in Hindi award for the Aishwarya Rai-Ajay Devgan starrer "Raincoat".

Madhur Bhandarkar's "Page 3", which won the best film award, has city-based Konkona Sensharma in the main lead.

The best supporting actor award went to Bengali film actor Haradhan Banerjee for "Krantikaal".

The award for the best audiography was bagged by Kolkata's Anup Mukherjee for the Bengali film "Iti Srikanta".

Said veteran filmmaker Dasgupta: "I am happy with the award because it is a recognition of your work. But at the same time, it is there and we move ahead. What should be important is the process of making the next film and then the next."

"I am also happy for all the people attached with this film, especially actors Raima Sen, Rimi Sen and Prasenjit Chatterjee who worked very hard, had full faith in me and gave very good performances," Dasgupta told IANS.

While the film is awaiting commercial release in India, "Swapner Din" was the toast of Toronto Film Festival where it was screened under the Masters of World Cinema section. The film is travelling to at least 30 other international film festivals.

"The reality as we think is actually boring and predictive. In the real hides the unreal with a drop of dream and magic making life interesting. 'Swapner Din' captures the latent dreams of three characters who come together and then things happen in their lives," said Dasgupta of his film, which sees reigning superstar Prasenjit in a sober role.

"Like all my films this was also inspired by my childhood memories," he said.

Filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh is happy that his maiden Hindi film, made in Kolkata, got the award for best Hindi film.

"It makes all the more happy because the film is made in Kolkata and yet it could compete with the other Hindi films."

"For me Hindi is also a regional language as we cannot say it is spoken in all parts of India. What clinched the award I think is the universal appeal of finding lost love as its storyline," said Ghosh.

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