Nandita Das

Date of Birth    : 7th November

Nandita Das was born 7th November, 1969 (age 40) in New Delhi. She is Daughter of Jatin Das who is an Indian painter, an Oriya Hindu, and a Gujarati Jain mother named as Varsha Das who is a writer. She went to Sarda Patel Vidyalaya, Lodhi Estate in New Delhi. She received her bachelor's degree in Geography from Miranda House (University of Delhi) and Post Graduation from the Delhi School of Social Work.

Nandita Das started her acting career with a theatre group is called Jannatya Manch. She taught at the Rishi Valley School. She was started in film career in 1995 when she played the lead role in the Hindi film Ek Thi Goonja directed by Bappa Ray. This film win the International Film Festival of India award in 1995, which in twist instilled self-belief in Nandita to move forward inside the celluloid humanity with a rehabilitated strength.

Nandita Das has played storyteller/narrator in the audiobook series for kids "Under the Banyan" by Karadi Tales. She has also been the narrator in the audiobook of Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography by Charkha Audiobooks "The Story of My Experiments with Truth". She has also lent her voice for the children's series, The Wonder Pet as the Bengal Tiger.

She is one of the finest and honour wining actress and director in Indian cinema and independent filmmaker. She is greatly famous in non commercial films and she is also famous in some controversial role. She is very talented actress and she has acted in films in ten different regional language films such as … English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Marathi, Oriya and Kannada.

In acting career she has best performances in these films Such as… Deepa Mehta Films Fire, Earth alongside Aamir Khan, Bawander Directed by Jag Mohan Mundhra and Amaar Bhuvan Directed by Mrinal Sen.

Directing

In 2008, she completed filming her directorial debut, Firaaq. Firaaq is a work of fiction, based on a thousand true stories and is set a month after the Gujarat carnage in 2002. It is an ensemble film that interweaves multiple stories over a 24 hour period, as the characters from different strata of society, grapple with the lingering effects of violence. The film traces the emotional journeys of ordinary people- some who were victims, some perpetrators and some who chose to watch silently. The film’s stellar cast includes Naseeruddin Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Paresh Rawal, Deepti Naval, Sanjay Suri, Tisca Chopra, Shahana Goswami and Nowaz.

The film won top honours at the Asian Fistival of First Films. 2008 in Singapore, where it won the awards for "Best Film", "Screenplay / Script", and "Foreign Correspondents Assn. Purple Orchid Award for Best Film". The film has also won awards at other international film festivals, including the Special Prize award at the International Thessaloniki Film Festival. in Greece the Special Jury Award at the International Film Festival of Kerala. and the Best Editor award for the film's editor Sreekar Prasad at the DubaiInternational Film Festival . It will be released in India on the 20th of March 2009. The film also won an award at the Kara Film Festival.

"I'm so glad 'Firaaq' has been applauded by audiences around the world, from Toronto, London, Pusan to Kolkata and Trivandrum. After all, human emotions are universal and after the kind of feedback I have got in different parts of the world, I understand that more. Audiences have been able to empathize with the journeys of the characters everywhere. It's more so in India, where it's set and hence people can identify with it more. It's been said that the film gave a voice to so much that remains silent and that it should be seen at least once. Though it's always great to win awards at every competitive festival we entered the film in, but it's actually the audience reaction that really matters," Nandita Das told Radio Sargam.

Philanthropy
Das gives talks around the world about the impact of her films and the need for powerful social movements in India. She spoke at MIT on 12 April 2007 after a screening of Fire.

She also speaks to campaign for child survival, against AIDS, and violence against women. She was appointed as the chairperson of the Children's Films Society of India in 2009.