Entertainment Desk

Today marks the birthday of the noted artiste Babita. Her fans, friends, co-artistes and well-wishers have sent greetings to the internationally-acclaimed actor on this auspicious day.

Farida Akhter, popularly known as Babita was born in Jashore on 30 July 1953. She is best known for her performance in Satyajit Ray’s “Ashani Sanket” (Distant Thunder), a novel adaptation about the Bengal famine of 1943. “Ashani Sanket” won the Golden Bear prize at the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival in 1973.

Babita’s brother-in-law Zahir Raihan first cast her for his movie “Jaltey Suraj Ka Nichey”. The film was not completed but she found a break through into the Dhaka film industry. Her first released film was “Shesh Porjonto”.

Babita acted in about 290 films. Her male co-actors were Razzak, Faruk, Zafar Iqbal, Bulbul Ahmed, and Sohel Rana. The actor-starrer noted films are ‘Shundori’, ‘Ekmutho Bhat’, ‘Anonto Prem’, ‘Bashundhara’, ‘Shohag’, ‘Fakir Majnu Shah’, ‘Owada’, ‘Lathial’, ‘Kotha Dilam’, ‘Nisahn’, ‘Atim’, ‘Laili Majnu’, ‘Dur Desh’, ‘Phul Shojja’, ‘Birongana Shokina’, ‘Mintu Amar Naam’, ‘Shukhe Thako’, ‘Taka Anna Pai’, ‘Shorolipi’, ‘Manusher Mon’, ‘Pich Dhala Path’, ‘Noyon Moni’, ‘Jonmo Theke Jolchi’ and ‘Anarkoli’..

Babita acted in number of joint venture film projects in her career, namely: a Canada-India joint production film “Durdesh” in 1983 (Gehri Chot - Urf: Durdesh in Hindi) opposite Nadeem Baig (actor) and also Pakistan-Bangladesh joint venture film “Miss Lanka” (Nadaani in Urdu) in 1985.

Babita was active in Bangladeshi films as an actress from 1968 to 1996. After winning the National Film Award in 1975, she won three consecutive best actress prizes. She won Best Actress in 1986, Best Producer in 1997 and Best Supporting Actress Award twice in 2002 and 2012.

In addition, she was awarded the lifetime achievement award of the National Film Award in 2016.