CM honours artistes and technicians of Tollywood at Mahanayak Samman

On the 39th death anniversary of Mahanayak Uttam Kumar, Wednesday evening saw the who’s who of the film industry gather for a gala award ceremony, Mahanayak Samman 2019, organised to felicitate the actors and technicians of Tollywood.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee handed out 17 awards to various actors and technicians from the industry. The event kick-started with artistes paying their respect to Uttam Kumar with flowers, following which the awards were announced. This year, five actors received the Mahanayak Samman – Satabdi Roy, Debasree Roy, Indrani Haldar, Jisshu U Sengupta and Parambrata Chatterjee. However, Satabdi, Parambrata and Jissu had to give the event a miss for professional commitments.

Among other awards, Jashojeet Banerjee won the Best Child Actor Award for Adventures of Jojo, Ramchandra Rajak won the award for Best Makeup Artist for Nagarkirtan. While the best costume award went to Gobindo Mondal, Shubhankar Bhor won the best cinematographer award for Byomkesh Gotro.

The award for the Best Screenplay was bagged by Srijit Mukherji for Ek Je Chilo Raja. Composer Prasen bagged the Best Music Award for Shah Jahan Regency, Dhrubo Banerjee bagged the Best New Director Award for Durgeshgorer Guptodhon and Kaushik Ganguly won the Best Director Award for Nagarkirtan.

While veteran actress Tanuja picked up the Best Actress Award for Sonar Pahar, the award for the Best Actor went to Ritwick Chakraborty for Nagarkirtan.

Srijit’s Ek Je Chilo Raja was given the Best Film Award. “It’s a very nice feeling, not because people tell me it is one of my best works, but also because it has gone to six film festivals and won 12 awards,” said Srijit.

Once the awards were distributed, CM Mamata Banerjee announced a special health insurance scheme for singers, much to everyone’s delight. In her speech, CM said that a similar health insurance scheme is already present for actors and technicians of the industry. But soon, health benefit schemes will be launched for singers too. “Actors and singers are our pride and we want these people to have a healthy and honourable life,” she said, adding that with the existing health benefits, artistes can get a free treatment at any government hospital.