Mumbai. Actress Anasuya Sengupta has won the Best Actress title in the Un Certain Regard segment of the Cannes Film Festival. She has become the first Indian actress to win this award. She received this award for her excellent role in the film Shameless. The film depicts the journey of a sex worker who escapes from a brothel after attacking a policeman.
Anasuya dedicated the award to the queer community and other marginalised communities across the world for bravely fighting a battle they shouldn’t have to fight. In her address at the ceremony, she said that you don’t have to be queer to fight for equality, you don’t have to be colonised to understand that colonisation is pathetic, we just need to be very, very civilised human beings.
Anasuya, originally from Kolkata, received her education from Jadavpur University. She made her acting debut in Bengali director Anjan Dutt’s rock musical Madly Bengali. In 2009, Anasuya moved to Mumbai. There she started her career as a production designer and was successful. After this, she turned to acting.