Nandita Das bestowed with French award of 'Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres'

The sultry actor Nandita Das will be bestowed with the prestigious Ordre Des Arts Et Des Letters at Paris for her contribution to cinema.

Euphoric Nandita said, “It took some time to sink in that the French wanted to honour me.”

“They’ve asked me to choose the French personality I want to receive the award from,” she added.

“And there’re so many people I want to get the award from. To me, Paris is like Kolkata, the cultural nerve-centre of the country,” she further said.

Nandita is making her debut as a director in the movie In Such Times which is a film based on happenings of our day to day life. And her movie is more likely to give us a taste of sensible movies with the help of people like Shahana Goswami, Naseeruddin Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Paresh Rawal, Deepti Naval and Tisca Arora who have earned name in theaters through their marvelous acting skills.

Designer Ritu Kumar, Shahrukh Khan has earlier got the prestigious Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres for outstanding contribution.

The award was established on May 2, 1957 by the France government and is bestowed to the person in recognition of significant contributions to the arts, literature, or the propagation of these fields.

Daughter of eminent painter Jatin Das, Nandita has done many critically acclaimed movies including Deepa Mehta Films Fire, Earth, Bawander and Mrinal Sen’s Amar Bhuvan. The versatile Indian actress too has performed in over 30 feature films and in ten different languages.

Das has received many national and international awards including the Best Actress awards for Bawander at the Santa Monica Film Festival (2001), for Mrinal Sen’s Amar Bhuvan at the Cairo Film Festival (2002) and for the Marathi film Maati Maay at the Madrid International Film Festival (2007).

The actress with so much talent was also invited to serve as a Member of the Jury at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2007.

Apart from acting she has lent her voice for an audiobook series for kids named the Under the Banyan by Karadi Tales and the audiobook of Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography by Charkha Audiobooks ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’.

Her films reflect many social issues and as a student of social work, she is always being an active member in various national and international forums. She has aptly understood the role of cinema as a powerful instrument of social change and with such works and talent the Ordre Des Arts Et Des Lettres does not come as a surprise but truly a recognition for her immense talent.