Exclusive! Gargee RoyChowdhury on winning an award in the US: This award is for everyone in team Mahananda

Gargee RoyChowdhury has bagged the first award for her performance in Arindam Sil’s Mahananda. She won the Best Actress award at the fifth Ottawa Indian Film Festival Award that took place between June 14 and 18. Meanwhile, Tara Ramanujan’s Forbidden (Nishiddho) won the Best Feature Film award at the ceremony. After the announcement, the actress talked exclusively to OTTplay on her journey. 

Based on Mahasweta Devi’s life, Mahananda was released in April. Despite critical acclaim, the film did not do well at the box office. Talking about the recognition, Gargee said, “This was the first recognition I got for Mahananda. I am happy for the entire team who worked really hard. I would like to share the recognition with my entire team. There was fierce competition at the festival where outstanding actresses were nominated in the category. Hence, this award will be special.” 

Arindam too has expressed his happiness. "I am extremely happy for her. She is a brilliant actress. I am glad that this film has fetched her this award," he said. 

Gargee plays the different ages of the character, Mahananda Bhattacharya – an activist and writer. She underwent prosthetic makeup every day to play the septuagenarian character. “It used to take two and a half hours to put the makeup on and another couple of hours to take it off. I used to be at the makeup table at 5;30 am with Somnath (Kundu, prosthetic makeup artist) and his team. It was no mean task. It was at the peak of summer and we used to shoot at 45 degrees C at Rampurhat. With prosthetic makeup on, it was a gruelling time,” she said. 

Gargee worked in a number of films in 2021. “During the Covid period, I was the busiest I guess. Besides Mahananda, I worked with Goutamda (Ghose, director) in his short film Memories of Time, with Atanu Ghosh in Sesh Pata and then in Haami 2 with Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy. While Mahananda gives me critical acclaim and awards, films like Haami 2 give me popularity. I just finished dubbing of Haami 2 and I believe it is going to be another superhit film,” she said.