Filmmakers
Srijit Mukherji and
Kaushik Ganguly, along with composer Prabuddha Banerjee, received the National Film Awards at a ceremony in Delhi on Monday. The award was announced in March this year. While Srijit’s Gumnaami was chosen as the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Bengali Film, Kaushik won the Best Original Screenplay Award and Prabuddha bagged the Best Music Direction (Background Score) award for their film, Jyeshthoputro.
“Gumnaami was a satisfying journey. I received death threats and court injunctions, and I was attacked personally on national television for this film. After all this, a National Award is important and satisfying,” said Srijit after receiving his fifth personal recognition in the National Awards circuit. It was Prabuddha's maiden National award.
Kaushik, on his part, said, "When you win an award where the competition is on a national level, it is even more satisfying Churni (Ganguly, wife) won the National Award for The Best Screenplay (Dialogue) for her film Tarikh at the 66th National Film Awards last year. Due to the pandemic, she couldn’t collect her award. Now that I am here, the authority has sent it to me. I am going home with two awards – one is mine and one is Churni’s"
Besides the trio, Bengal has several other representations, including Sudhanshu Saria, Shantanu Sen, Farah Khatoon, Bauddhayan Mukherji, Arjun Gourisaria and Saptarshi Sarkar, on the award list this year.