At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Indians are making their presence known on the global platform. Scripting history, actor Anasuya Sengupta has become the first Indian to win the Best Actress award at the Un Certain Regard segment for her role in ‘The Shameless.’
Directed by Bulgarian filmmaker Constantin Bojanov, The Shameless’ revolves around the journey of a sex worker who escapes a brothel after stabbing a police officer in Delhi. Anasuya Sengupta dedicated her award “to the queer community and other marginalized communities around the world for bravely fighting a battle they shouldn't have to fight.” As quoted by Variety, in her acceptance speech, the actor said, “You don't have to be queer to fight for equality, you don't have to be colonized to understand that colonizing is pathetic. We just need to be very, very decent human beings.”
A video of her reacting to her win is going viral on social media. Take a look at the viral video here.
The video has fetched over 7K likes. Celebrities like Radhika Apte, Tillotama Shome, and Kani Kusruti have congratulated her on her win. Taking to the comments, Shome wrote, “Just beautiful!!!!!!!!! History making. Putting us on the map!!! Darn, I don't have my glasses and can't seem to figure out how to share this! but I can't even begin to describe the JOY!!!! Kisss teeni bon for me please.” Reacting to her win, one fan said, “Wow wow wow.” A second fan said, “Surreal!” A third fan commented, “Wowww amazing!”
Born and brought up in Kolkata, Sengupta is known for designing sets. She had last worked in ‘Masaba Masaba.’ In other news, the Cannes Un Certain Regard Prize was awarded to ‘Black Dog,’ a film by Chinese director Hu Guan. Additionally, the Jury Prize went to Boris Lojkine's asylum-seeker narrative, ‘The Story of Souleymane.’
