Bengali Christians are adherents of Christianity among the Bengali people. Christianity took root in Bengal after the arrival of Portuguese voyagers in the 16th century. It witnessed further conversions among the Bengali upper-caste elite during the 19th century Bengali Renaissance.
Uttam Kumar, widely known as Mahanayak, was an Indian film actor, producer, director, screenwriter, composer, and playback singer who predominantly worked in Bengali cinema. His career spanned three decades, from the late 1940s until his death in 1980. Kumar is regarded as one of the greatest actors in the history of Indian cinema and also the most popular and successful film star in Bengal.
The culture of West Bengal is an Indian culture which has its roots in Bengali literature, music, fine arts, drama and cinema. Different geographic regions of West Bengal have subtle as well as more pronounced variations between each other, with Darjeeling Himalayan hill region and Duars showing particularly different socio-cultural aspects.
Chatterjee, also known as Chattopadhyay is a Bengali Hindu surname, used by the Kulin group of the Bengali Brahmin caste. Together with Banerjees, Mukherjees, Bhattacharjees, and Gangulys, Chatterjees form the Kulin Brahmins, the highest tier of the Bengali caste system. They belong to Rarhi clan of Bengali Brahmins and the Kashyapa gotra.
Prosenjit Chatterjee is an Indian actor and producer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading actors of modern Bengali cinema. He predominantly works in Bengali cinema. He is the son of veteran Bollywood actor Biswajit Chatterjee.
Birendra Krishna Bhadra (1905–1991) was a radio broadcaster, playwright, actor, narrator and theatre director from Kolkata, India and a contemporary of Pankaj Mallick and Kazi Nazrul Islam. He worked for the All India Radio, India's National Radio broadcaster for several years during its early, starting 1930s, and during this period he produced and adapted several plays.
Shyama Sangeet is a genre of Bengali devotional songs dedicated to the Hindu goddess Shyama or Kali which is a form of supreme universal mother-goddess Durga or parvati. It is also known as Shaktagiti or Durgastuti.
Cinema of West Bengal, also known as Tollywood or Bengali cinema, is the segment of Indian cinema, dedicated to the production of motion pictures in the Bengali language widely spoken in the state of West Bengal. It is based in the Tollygunge region of Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The origins of the nickname Tollywood, a portmanteau of the words Tollygunge and Hollywood, dates back to 1932. It was a historically important film industry, at one time the centre of Indian film production. The Bengali film industry is known for producing many of Indian cinema's most critically acclaimed global Parallel Cinema and art films, with several of its filmmakers gaining prominence at the Indian National Film Awards as well as international acclaim.
Kavigan, Kobi Gaan, Kobi Lorai or Kabigan is a form of Bengali folk performance wherein folk poets sing and perform. A verbal duel among the poets, this mystic minstrels art was popular with rural folk form in nineteenth century in Bengal region, which includes the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh.. The mythological themes from both Hindu and Muslims religious texts were commonly used for Kobi Gaan.
Jhinder Bondi is a 1961 Indian Bengali-language historical drama film produced by Bholanath Roy under his banner B.N Productions and directed by Tapan Sinha, starring Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, Arundhati Devi and Tarun Kumar in lead roles. Uttam Kumar played a dual role in this film. The film's music was composed by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
Bengali Hindus are an ethnoreligious population who make up the majority in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jharkhand, and Assam's Barak Valley region. In Bangladesh, they form the largest minority. They are adherents of Hinduism and are native to the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. Comprising about one-third of the global Bengali population, they are the largest ethnic group among Hindus. Bengali Hindus speak Bengali, which belongs to the Indo-Aryan language family and adhere to Shaktism or Vaishnavism of their native religion Hinduism with some regional deities. There are significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus in different Indian states. According to the census in 1881, 12.81 per cent of Bengali Hindus belonged to the three upper castes while the rest belonged to the Shudra and Dalit castes.
Srijit Mukherji is an Indian film director and screenwriter who predominantly works in Bengali cinema. His regular collaboration with veteran actor Prosenjit Chatterjee brought him into the limelight. His first feature film Autograph (2010), was a critical and commercial success, where he had written the script with Chatterjee in mind. His fifth film, Jaatishwar, won four national awards at India's 61st National Film Awards (2014). He won the National Film Award for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay for his sixth film, Chotushkone, at India's 62nd National Film Awards. His eighth film, Rajkahini had been remade into a Hindi film titled, Begum Jaan, starring Vidya Balan in 2017. His 2018 release Ek Je Chhilo Raja won the 'Best Bengali Film' Award at India's 66th National Film Awards. His 2019 film Gumnaami won him the Best Bengali Film and Best Adapted Screenplay Awards at the 67th National Film Awards.
Moner Manush is a 2010 India-Bangladesh joint venture Bengali-language biographical musical drama film based on the life and philosophy of Lalon, a noted spiritual leader, poet and folk singer of Bengal in the 19th century. Directed by Goutam Ghose, who also wrote the screenplay, the film has Prosenjit as the lead actor portraying the character of Lalan Fakir. Paoli Dam plays the character of Komli, the key female disciple of Lalan. Moner Manush has been critically and commercially successful.
Gauriprasanna Majumdar was an Indian lyricist and writer known for his work in Indian cinema and Bangladeshi cinema. He is most commonly associated with the black and white era of Bengali cinema, when he penned several enduring classics for films. Often considered as one of the greatest and most prominent lyricists of the golden era of Bengali cinema, he is a recipient of numerous accolades. He won the Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards for best lyricist for Swaralipi (1962), Palatak (1964), Anthony Firingee (1968), Bon Palashir Padabali (1974), Sanyasi Raja (1976) and Anurager Chhoan. He also won National Film Awards of Bangladesh for Sesh Porjonto (1969).
Chhaya Devi was an Indian actress known for her work in Bengali and Hindi cinema. She appeared in hundreds of films for over five decades.
Antony Firingee is a 1967 Indian biographical musical drama film directed by Sunil Bannerjee, starring Uttam Kumar and Tanuja on the lead. It is a biopic based on the life of Anthony Firingee, a Bengali language folk poet of Portuguese origin. Antony Firingee was a Portuguese-Indian who became a famous Bengali poet musician and fell in love with Nirupoma. She agreed to marry him after revealing her tragic history. But his fame was not enough to overcome their ostracisation and tragedy struck again.
Jaatishwar is a 2014 Indian Bengali musical drama film directed by Srijit Mukherji, starring Prosenjit Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta and Swastika Mukherjee. The main focus of the plot revolves around the life and notable works of Anthony Firingee, a 19th-century Bengali language folk poet of Portuguese origin, along with other supporting characters. The time frame of the storyline jumps between two different periods—19th century and the present day (2013). The music of Jaatiswar is composed by Kabir Suman.
Tarun Kumar Chatterjee was an Indian actor who is known for his exclusive work in Bengali cinema. In most of his films, his role as a supporting actor gave him huge appreciation from critics and audience.
Bishorjan (transl. Immersion) is a 2017 Indian Bengali-language film written and directed by Kaushik Ganguly, produced by Opera Productions. It stars Abir Chatterjee, and Jaya Ahsan. The story revolves around a love story between a Bangladeshi Hindu widow and Indian Muslim businessman, who one day washes up on the Bangladesh side of the Ichamati river.
Mahalaya (2019) is an Indian Bengali language drama film directed by Soumik Sen and produced by Nideas Creations and Productions Pvt Ltd. The film narrates an incident in Bengal in 1976, when Birendra Krishna Bhadra narrated and Pankaj Mullick composed widely popular Mahisasuramardini program, which had been playing on All India Radio since 1931 on the eve of Mahalaya, was replaced by a new program Durga Durgatiharini, narrated by Bengali film actor Uttam Kumar and composed by Hemanta Mukherjee. Subhasish Mukhopadhyay played the role of Bhadra and Jisshu Sengupta played the role of Uttam Kumar.
