Films Division, Government of India and Nandan, West Bengal Film Centre, organized an event to celebrate International Women’s Day. The event was titled “A Daughter’s Tribute”.

The event featured documentaries made by three woman filmmakers Priya Dutt, Shabnam Sukhdev, and Ratnottama Sengupta, on their parents.

Priya Dutt’s “Nargis” is biographical on her late mother Nargis Dutt showing scenes from her many films; from her earlier roles as a child artiste right up to her role in the epic Mother India.  This film contains interviews with her family members, friends, and colleagues and brings back fond memories of this great actress and human being.

Shabnam Sukhdev’s “The Last Adieu” is a daughter’s journey from denial to indifference, from apathy to empathy, from hate to love, as she discovers his father S. Sukhdev who was a genius, a sensitive and compulsive filmmaker who sacrificed his personal life to painstakingly conveying social and political truths on celluloid.

“And They Made Classics” goes behind the scenes with an interview with Nabendu Ghosh that was taken by Joy Bimal Roy in 2005, as he prepared to make ‘Remembering Bimal Roy’. Ratnottama Sengupta revisits the stories in a Centennial Tribute to Nabendu Ghosh.

The screening was preceded by felicitation of two woman achievers from Bengal-Sudipta Chakraborty, National Award Winning Actress & Theatre Personality and Sohini Roychowdhury, International Dancer & Professor of ‘Natyashastra’. The whole program was coordinated by Ratnottama Sengupta.

Speaking at the occasion, Sudipta Chakraborty said “I don’t know how much of a worthy daughter I have become of my father. But I have tried to carry on with his acting style. My sister Bidipta also followed our father’s footsteps and went into acting. My mother however is a well-known dancer and my other sister has carried on her tradition”.

Sohini Roychowdhury highlighted the fact that both her parents are in the arts field. However, she did not carry either of their legacies. She stuck to the arts field and started her career in dance. Now she has students all over the world and she teaches dance to the underprivileged too.

The screening also saw the presence of a few budding female filmmakers from slums who are given training in fundamentals of film making by ‘Prayasam’ a Kolkata-based NGO.