National Award Winning Films by Rituparno Ghosh

Rituparno Ghosh received his first National Award for this film which is a remake of Ingmar Bergman’s 1978 movie ‘Autumn Sonata’. It stars the effervescent Aparna Sen and Debashree Roy, in a mother-daughter relationship, teasing out the intricate bittersweet emotions for the audience to see. Although this was his second movie, it had a very mature handling of human relationships and paved the way for Debashree Roy to win a National Award for Best Actress.

Bariwali starring Kirron Kher was a touching story about a lonely woman whose monotonous life is shoved into excitement when she meets a married film star. When the excitement of having a film crew in her house recedes after they leave, her life takes up the dullness again and now in a more tragic manner because of her being left heartbroken by the movie star. Kher bagged the prestigious National award for Best actress and helped continue Ghosh’s National Award winning streak.

The second movie in the same year, ‘Asukh’ is a family drama which explored the relationship between a father and his movie star daughter whose earnings he is dependent on. Things become complicated when her mother ends up in a hospital due to an undiagnosed illness and all hell breaks loose with her father. Besides the National Award, ‘Asukh’ also won the FIPRESCI Prize (Special Mention) at Bombay International Film Festival.

‘Utsab’ (The Festival) is a commentary on the various emotional currents passing among family and relatives underneath the supposedly festive occasion. This movie is centered on Durga Puja when the various members of a typical Bengali family gather together at their native house and how problems and rifts start arising which show some common and other complex problems that plague every middle-class family. It won the National Film award for best feature film in Bengali.

This was the second National Award the same year for Rituparno for his Aishwarya Rai, Prosenjit and Raima Sen starrer ‘Chokher Bali’ based on the Rabindranath Tagore novel by the same name. The story dealt with widowhood, lust, deceit and adultery and was Aishwarya’s one and only Bengali mainstream movie. It won the national award for best feature film in Bengali and various other international accolades.

An adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple story ‘The Mirror Crack’d From Side To Side’, this suspense story starred Sharmila Tagore, Nandita Das, Raakhee and Sumanta Mukherjee in the lead. The crux of the plot is about the death of a drug-addled actress on the occasion of the ‘Shubho Mahurat’, the auspicious beginning of the shooting of a film. This sudden death drags in everyone as the suspects. This movie helped Raakhee win a National Award.

Rituparno’s second movie with Aishwarya and his first Hindi movie ‘Raincoat’ had her paired opposite Ajay Devgn. Adapted from O Henry’s 1906 short story ‘The Gift of the Magi’, it is a heart-wrenching story about two former lovers who meet after years and their reminiscences about their relationship long ago. While both are in doldrums personally, they pretend to be happy in front of each other, only to realize each other’s actual situation once they part. The film won the national award for best feature film in Hindi.

Ghosh’s first and only movie in English was inspired from Utpal Dutt’s semiautobiographical play ‘Aajker Shahjahan’. A glaring cinematic exposition about the difference between theatre and modern cinema, it is centered on Amitabh Bachchan, a passionate Shakespearean stage actor who has the greatest disdain for modern cinema. Compelling on the screen, dramatic and forceful, Amitabh Bachchan gave the performance of a lifetime with critical praises. The film won the National Award of India for Best Feature Film in English.

Another cinematic genius by Ghosh​, this film starring Bollywood actor Bipasha Basu opposite Prosenjit, is the story of the relationship of a practical, stolid wife to her dreamy poet husband who lives in his surreal world. After his death, she starts reading his poetry and realizes that he is somehow more real to her now that he is dead than while he was when he was living. The meaning of the name of the movie is ‘All Characters Are Imaginary’, and this movie interprets this in all ways possible like life, death and fiction. It won the national film award for best feature film in Bengali.

Rituparno’s last movie winning the National Award for Best Direction was ‘Abohoman’. It is a complex movie about the relationship of a filmmaker with his wife, his actress and his muse starring with Dipankar De and Mamata Shankar. As the story moves forward, these three start becoming interchanged – and it is left open for interpretation in the climax of the movie. This movie bagged three National Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress for Ananya Chatterjee.

'Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish' is a 2012 Bengali-language film written and directed by Rituparno Ghosh. The film premiered on 25 May 2012 at the New York Indian Film Festival and is based on the story of Chitrangada from the Mahabharata and Ghosh himself plays the role of a transgender with a socially evoking identities supported by Jisshu Sengupta. It tells the story of a choreographer who is struggling with his gender identity. It was awarded the special Jury Award at the 60th National Film Awards.