Mrinal Sen was an Indian film director and screenwriter known for his work primarily in Bengali, and a few Hindi and Telugu language films. Regarded as one of the finest Indian filmmakers, along with his contemporaries Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, and Tapan Sinha, Sen played a major role in the New Wave cinema of eastern India.
Victor Banerjee is an Indian actor who appears in English, Hindi, Bengali and Assamese language films. He has worked with great directors such as Roman Polanski, James Ivory, Sir David Lean, Jerry London, Ronald Neame, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Montazur Rahman Akbar and Ram Gopal Varma. He won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film Ghare Baire. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, in 2022 by the Indian Government in the field of art.
Madhabi Chakraborty is an Indian actress. She won the National Film Award for Best Actress for her performance in the Bengali film Dibratrir Kabya. She has acted in some of the most critically acclaimed films in Bengali cinema and is considered one of the great actresses of Bengali cinema.
The Calcutta trilogy may refer to either of the following two Bengali film trilogies:
Sen is a native Bengali Hindu surname derived from "Sena", the Sanskrit word for "army".
Several fiction, non-fiction and cinemas were based on Kolkata or depicted Kolkata from certain point of views. Some of such works are listed here.
Parallel cinema or New Indian Cinema, is a film movement in Indian cinema that originated in the state of West Bengal in the 1950s as an alternative to the mainstream commercial Indian cinema.
Suhasini Mulay is an Indian actress in Assamese, Bollywood and Marathi films as well as television. She won five National Film Awards.
Mohit Chattopadhyaya was a Bengali Indian playwright, screenwriter, dramatist and poet. He was a leading figure in modern Indian drama. Mohit Chottopadhya died on 12 April 2012. He had been suffering from cancer.
Satyajit Ray was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and composer. Ray is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential film directors in the history of cinema. He is celebrated for works including The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), The Music Room (1958), The Big City (1963) and Charulata (1964) and the Goopy–Bagha trilogy.
Cinema of West Bengal, also known as Tollywood or Bengali cinema, is an Indian film industry of Bengali-language motion pictures. 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.
Interview was a 1971 Bengali film directed by noted Indian art film director Mrinal Sen. A path-breaking film in terms of narrative innovation and cinematic technique, it was a commercial and critical success. It also happened to be the debut film of Ranjit Mallick. Although it was a film on the colonial hangover, it touched upon diverse issues like anti-establishment, middle class cowardice, and unemployment.
Calcutta 71 is a 1972 Bengali film directed by noted Indian art film director Mrinal Sen. This film is considered to be the second film of Mrinal Sen's Calcutta trilogy, the others two being Interview, and Padatik. The film is a collection of stories depicting the 1970s. The Naxalite movement, starvation of common people, and social and political corruption are shown. There are four stories shown in the film.
Shyamanand Jalan was a Kolkata-based Indian theatre director, and actor. He is credited for the renaissance period of modern Indian theatre and especially the Hindi theatre in Kolkata from the 1960s to 1980s. He was the first to perform modernist Mohan Rakesh, starting with Ashadh Ka Ek Din in 1960 and in the coming years bridged the gap between Hindi theatre and Bengali theatre, by mounting Hindi productions of works by Bengali playwrights, like Badal Sircar's Evam Indrajit (1968) and Pagla Ghora (1971), which in turn introduced Sircar to rest of the country. In 2005, he directed his first and only film Eashwar Mime Co., which was an adaptation of Dibyendu Palit's story, Mukhabhinoy, by Vijay Tendulkar.
Samik Bandyopadhyay is a Kolkata-based critic of Indian art, theatre and film.
K. K. Mahajan was an Indian cinematographer who was known for his work in Parallel Cinema. In a career that spanned over four decades, he won four National Film Awards. He was best known for his work with filmmakers such as Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul, Basu Chatterjee and Mrinal Sen.
Raat Bhore is a 1955 Bengali drama film directed by Mrinal Sen, who also wrote the screenplay. This was Sen's first film.
Antareen is a 1993 Bengali-language Indian film directed by Mrinal Sen. Although based on the 1950 Saadat Hasan Manto story Badshahat Ka Khatimah, the screenplay has a different ending. It stars Anjan Dutt and Dimple Kapadia. Antareen was the first non-Hindi project Kapadia took part in since Vikram (1986). She played a woman caught in a loveless marriage. Insisting on playing her part spontaneously, Kapadia refused to enroll in a crash-course in Bengali as she wrongly felt that she would be able to speak it convincingly. Her voice was eventually dubbed by actor Anushua Majumdar, something Kapadia was unhappy with.
Shekhar Chatterjee (1924–1990) was an Indian actor and film director.
Kalyani Sen, was Second Officer of the Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service (WRINS), a section of the Women's Auxiliary Corps (India) WAC(I). In 1945, she became the first Indian service woman to visit the UK.
