 My
career in film began in Satyajit
Ray’s film Kanchenjungha.
I was honoured to be selected for the main character
Manisha,
a quietly strong girl. Although this film of 1962
won no awards for Mr. Ray,
it is still acclaimed as one of his best films. It was
the first time he used his own story and made a shift
from black-and white to a film in colour.
After a gap of some time, my next
work on screen was for Calcutta
Door Darshan in 1978 in Acharya,
a tele-play directed by Shekhar
Chatterjee. Here I had the
opportunity of working with Shubhendu
Chatterjee and Robin Mazumdar,
the eminent actors of yester years.
Buddhadeb Dasgupta
brought me back to films in Phera
in the female lead. This was a mature woman, weak but
fighting for survival. The film was selected for entry
to the Berlin Film Festival
in 1988. In the credit title
of this film my married surname Datta was used. However,
later I dropped it and went back to my original surname
Roy that had been used in my debut film.
In Paramitar
Ek Din directed by Aparna
Sen, I was cast in the role
of an aunt. Then in Utsav
directed by Rituparno Ghosh
my role was more important
and occupied a major space as the eldest daughter-in-law
of the family. Both of these are eminent directors of
Bengal today.
Provat Roy,
one of the important directors of the mainstream Bengali
cinema, has used me in several films and telefilms,
the first of which was Sedin
Chaitra Mash.
I felt honoured when a famous top ranking director
like Shyam Benegal cast
me in the role of Netaji’s
mother in Bose, the Forgotten
Hero, a film in Hindi about Netaji
Subhash Chandra Bose.
Very recently, one of the younger sensitive directors
Anjan Das, cast me in
the role of a heartless mother-in-law
in Jara Brishtitey Bhijechilo.
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