Presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the award is India’s highest honour in cinema, established in 1969.
Birendranath Sircar founded the studio New Theatres Calcutta in Tollygunge in 1930. Forty years later, he became the first Bengali and second person to win the Dadasaheb Phalke award. By that time, his studio had attracted directors such as P C Barua, Premankur Atorthy, Debaki Bose, Dhirendra Nath Ganguly, Bimal Roy and Phani Majumdar.
Pankaj Mullick, who received the award in 1972, was one of the pioneers of Indian film music in his time. Besides being a composer and singer, Mullick was also an actor, a playwright, a writer, a teacher, and an administrator. His career at All India Radio spanned 50 years, while his career in Indian films was spread over 38 years. At AIR, Pankaj Mullick set music to the immortal Mahishasuramardini, a programme that has become a part of Bengali culture and synonymous with Durga Puja. It is heard every Mahalaya morning to this date, with an uninterrupted run since it began in 1931.
Dhirendra Nath Ganguly was an actor, entrepreneur, and director. He and Madan Theatres’ manager Nitish Lahiri formed the first Bengali-owned film production company, Indo British Film Co. Later, he formed the Lotus Film Company, British Dominion Films, and other production companies. He received the award just three years after Mullick, in 1975.
Ganguly was followed by three Bengali artistes in the next three years.
Actress and singer Kanan Devi, the highest-paid actress of her time, had shot to fame while working with Radha Film Company, winning the award in 1976. Devi made her debut as a child actress in the film Joydev (1926). She worked in a total of 57 films, and she sang around 40 songs. In Hindi cinema, Devi also worked with veteran actors KL Sehgal, Pankaj Malik, Prathamesh Barua, Pahari Sanyal, Chhabi Biswas, and Ashok Kumar.
In 1977, the award was won by Nitin Bose, a film director, cinematographer, and screenwriter who made both Bengali and Hindi films. He has also worked with Sircar’s New Theatres Calcutta. The first use of playback singing in Indian films occurred in films directed by Bose — in Bhagya Chakra, a 1935 Bengali film, and later in the same year its Hindi remake, Dhoop Chhaon. His most well-known work is Ganga Jamuna. Satyajit Ray, a future winner, was a nephew of Bose and worked under him in the movie Mashaal (1950).
Raichand Boral received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1978. He was known as the father of Indian film music. His famous films were Puran Bhagat, Chandidas, Dhoop Chhaon, Manzil, Anath Ashram, Vidyapati, President, Abhaagan, Jawani ki Reet, Sapera, Haar Jeet, Lagan, Saugand, Wapas and Wasiat Nama. Anjangarh (1948) was his last film with New Theatres. He was the music director for Bose’s Dhoop Chhaon.
Satyajit Ray, who won the national award in 1984, figures among the world’s favourite filmmakers. He is the only Indian filmmaker thus far who won an Oscar for lifetime achievement in cinema. He was also a music composer, writer, screenplay writer, documentary filmmaker, lyricist, illustrator, magazine editor, and many more. Ray first saw global recognition through his film Pather Panchali (1955) which received a major award at the 1956 Cannes International Film Festival.
Born in then-undivided Bengal in Bhagalpur, Ashok Kumar was one of the most popular actors of Bollywood in the sixties, receiving the award in 1988. Kumar’s film career continued throughout the sixties and the seventies in productions like Aansoo Ban Gaye Phool (1969), Pakeezah (1972), and Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan (1978). He also appeared in the foreign Tumhare Liye (1978) with Sanjeev Kumar.
In 1999, Hrishikesh Mukherjee won. A director, editor, and writer, he is considered one of the greatest directors of Indian cinema. He is known for a number of films, including Anari, Satyakam, Chupke Chupke, Anupama, Anand, Abhimaan, Guddi, Gol Maal, Bawarchi, Khubsoorat and Namak Haraam.
Mrinal Sen won in 2003, having started his career in 1969 with a comedy, Bhuvan Shome — going on to win several national and international awards.
Writer Rabindranath Tagore was a great source of inspiration to Tapan Sinha, who won the award in 2006. Sinha was a renowned Bengali film director who was influenced by American and British filmmaking. He made three films on Tagore’s stories: Kabuliwala, Khudito Pashan, and Atithi.
Sinha was followed a year later by Manna Dey (2007), a renowned playback singer, music director and composer of Hindi films as well as Bengali cinema. For almost fifty years, he did playback singing for popular Hindi films, featuring in big names like Sholay, Mera Naam Joker, Anand and several other films.
Finally, Soumitra Chattopadhyay was the last Bengali to win the Dadasaheb Award in 2011, over a decade before Mithun Chakraborty’s win. Chattopadhyay was known for his collaborations with Oscar-winning film director Satyajit Ray, with whom he worked on fourteen films. He began his film career in 1959 with Satyajit Ray’s film Apur Sansar.
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