Ritwik Ghatak honorary awards in Bangladesh

Four filmmakers and activists from Bangladesh and India have been selected for the Ritwik Ghatak Honorary Awards this year during the 8th Ritwik Ghatak Film Festival in Bangladesh, which will kick-start on the maestro’s birthday on November 4.
The award recipients this year are faculty member of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute Shyamal Karmakar from Kolkata and filmmaker Akram Khan, film activist Zahidur Rahim Anjan and thespian Kazi Sayed Hossain Dulal.
The festival will screen Ritwik Ghatak’s cult classics, along with contemporary arthouse films. There will also be a conference of film activists. Awardees Shaymal Karmakar and Akram Khan will conduct a film-making workshop as well.
Many filmmakers have redefined Indian cinema over the years, with some received international glory and few others endured abomination from political circles for narrating stories which reflected the injustice by society and governments. Nowhere was this clearer than in Bengali film history, in which Satyajit Ray was idolized in the first category, while the second saw its torchbearer in controversy’s favourite child Ritwik Ghatak.
Often termed one of the pioneers of parallel cinema movement in India, Ghatak used to tell riveting stories on the Bengal partition, of which he was himself a victim. Ritwik Ghatak’s works are still a testament to the social, personal and political turmoil he faced in life.