NEW DELHI: Four eminent film personalities namely Dilip Kumar, Tapan Sinha, Lata Mangeshkar and Saroja Devi are set to receive the “One Time Award for Life Time Achievement”.
The award is to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of India‘s Independence.
Sinha, who is one of the all-time celluloid greats, would be presented the award in the field of film direction. In view of his failing health, he will be conferred the award at his residence in Kolkata by West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi in the presence of Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi.
The Award citation underlines Tapan Sinha‘s “….amazingly down-to-earth cinematic depiction of the struggles of the common man. His reputation as an uncompromising filmmaker, a celluloid iconoclast, puts him in a class of his own. A storyteller par excellence, Tapan Sinha‘s films such as Kabuliwala (1957), Haatey Bazaare (1967), Safed Haathi (1977) are well-crafted in terms of structure and technique, exhibiting his virtuosity and capability to handle a range of subjects with equal élan and sensitivity.”
Sinha‘s works have won 19 National Film Awards in various categories in International film festivals like those in Berlin, Venice, London, Moscow, San Francisco and Locarno.
He has directed films in Bengali, Hindi and also Oriya. He made three films based on Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore‘s works: Kabuliwala, Khudito Pashan and Atithi.
Sinha‘s cinematic landscape traverses a journey that began with Ankush (1954) and highlighted by Uphaar (1955), Tonsil (1956), Louhakapat (1957), Kalomati (1957), Hansuli Banker Upakatha (1962), Sagina Mahato (1970), Banchharamer Bagan (1980), Adalat O Ekti Meye (1982), Ek Doctor Ki Maut (1991) and Shatabdir Kanya (2001).
Lata Mangeshkar, who have sung over 50,000 songs in 20 Indian languages, will recieve the award for playback singing.
She received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1990 and was named the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian honour, in 2001.
Lata got a toehold in the industry by singing “Pa Lagoon Kar Jori Re” in the film Aap ke Sewa Main (1947). She sang several songs in other films over the next few years, but her first big hit was in 1949 with “Aayega Aanewaala”.
Born in 1922, Dilip Kumar (aka Yusuf Khan) will be conferred the “One Time Award for Life Time Achievement” in the field of acting.
Starting his career in 1944, Dilip Kumar has starred in some of the biggest commercially successful films from the late 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1980s.
He was the first actor to receive a Filmfare Best Actor Award and holds the record for most number of Filmfare Awards won for that category. Though he has done all kinds of films – he balanced a wide variety of roles such as the intense Andaz (1949) with the swashbuckling Aan (1952), the dramatic Devdas (1955) with the comical Azaad (1955) and the historical romance Mughal E Azam (1960) with the social Ganga Jamuna (1961).
In the 1970s roles dried up for Kumar and after 1976 he left films for a five year break. In 1981 he returned with a character role in the blockbuster film Kranti and continued his career playing central character roles in hits such as Shakti (1982), Karma (1986) and Saudagar (1991).
He received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1995, apart from getting the highest civilian honour Nisha-e-Imtiaz from the Pakistan Government. He continues to be a living icon for the present generation of film stars.
Today a senior citizen of Kannada filmdom, B Saroja Devi is one of the first female artistes to spread the aroma of Kannada cinema all over the country. Her histrionic range is so vast that she has portrayed an amazing variety of roles in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu films.
In Kannada, after her “spectacular” debut at a very young age in Mahakavi Kalidasa, she went on to play some extremely popular roles in films like Anna Thangi, Amarashilpi Jakanachari (the first colour movie to be made in the language), Bhagyavantharu, School Master, Kittooru Chennamma, Beretha Jeeva and Mallammana Pavada.
Saroja Devi is also the only Kannada actress to have held a large number of public offices, including that of chairperson of the Karnataka State Film Industry Development Corporation.
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