Riddhi Sen praises Anasuya Sengupta, challenges ‘conventional’ casting practices

Anasuya Sengupta, who hails from Kolkata, won the Best Actress award in the Un Certain Regard Section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. At Cannes, she received the award for her performance in Bulgarian director Konstantin Bojanov’s The Shameless.

Anasuya worked in a Bengali film, Madly Bangalee, directed by Anjan Dutt, in 2009. Later she moved to Mumbai and then Goa. Along with her acting, she worked as a production designer.

Riddhi Sen, while hailing Anasuya’s achievement, pointed out that the conventional benchmark of glamour does not affect an actor’s talent. Anasuya defies the set and acceptable beauty standard of the Indian entertainment industry, as well as society. Her victory proved once again that art does not need social validation.

On his social media, Riddhi wrote, “Anasuya Sengupta indeed created history, it’s a proud moment for all of us. But it also leaves us with a question, how will history root itself in the present?” The national award-winning actor further questioned, “Will castings still continue to happen on the basis of social media followers and not based on craft and hard work? Will we continue casting hackneyed actors labelling themselves as stars (which they are also clearly incapable of being ), giving them opportunities time and again to only play themselves ...?” Riddhi also wrote that there are many labels and brands playing behind the stars' getting cast. He said that people defend them by saying 'Look how he maintains his body even at this age!' Riddhi wrote 'Question remains, when do we get out of the ghetto of playing safe and realise the necessity of taking risks ?' Many people supported Riddhi on social media. It was recently heard that Riddhi would work in Anurag Kashyap's new Hindi film. But Riddhi does not want to comment on anything regarding the film.