Anik Dutta’s 'Aparajito' sweeps WBFJA awards

Anik Dutta's movie Aparajito (The Undefeated), a tribute to legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray, swept the West Bengal Film Journalists' Association (WBFJA) awards winning eight crowns, including Best Film and Best Director.

Prasun Chatterjee's Dostojee, a story of bonding between two children in the time of religious bigotry, also bagged the Best Film award.

Aparajito also won the Best Screenplay, Best Promising Actor, Best Makeup, Best Costume, Best Background Score and Best Art Director honour at the award ceremony held here on Sunday.

Speaking on the occasion, Dutta said "any award given by film journalists is always special and very important. Aparajito is my labour of love, I thank my entire team and the producer who made this possible."

Prasun Chatterjee jointly shared the Most Promising Director award for his film Dostojee.

The movie also jointly shared the Best Cinematographer crown (Tuhin Biswas) and the Best Sound Designer award (Prasun Chatterjee and Rohit Sengupta).

Actor-filmmaker Anirban Bhattacharya also received the Most Promising Director award for Ballabhpurer Roopkatha while Ishaan Ghose jointly received the Best Cinematographer award for Jhilli (a film on the life of people of Dhapa, the city's dump yard ) and Anindit Roy, Adeep Singh Manki for Ballabhpurer Roopkatha.

The Best Supporting Actor Male award went to Shyamal Chakraborty for Ballabhpurer Roopkatha. Ritwik Chakraborty and Dev shared the Best Actor Male award jointly for their roles in Ananta and Projapoti respectively.

The Best Actor Female crown went to Gargee Roychowdhury for her role in Mahananda', a feature film inspired by the life of writer Mahasweta Devi, while Paoli Dam got the Best Supporting Actor Female for the film Byomkesh Hatyamancha, based on the exploits of a popular fictional sleuth.

Aparajito actor Jeetu Kamal got the 'Most Promising Actor Male' award while Shruti Das received the 'Most Promising Actor Female' honour for X=Prem, a college campus-oriented romcom by Srijit Mukherji.

Mukherji said the list of recipients in various categories showed varied works, representing different genres, in the Bengali film industry and how young directors, music directors and cinematographers were coming up with amazing works.

"This list is fairly balanced and seeks to recognise the memorable works by the seasoned and young brigade," he said.