Shama Zaidi

Farida Jalal (née Sami; born March 14, 1949) is an Indian actress active in Hindi cinema and television. In a career spanning nearly half a century, she has acted in over 200 films, and has received accolades such as four Filmfare Awards, two Bengal Film Journalists Association Awards, a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance, and the Best Actress Award at the 2012 Harlem International Film Festival. Jalal started her career in film as a teenager and went on to play leading and supporting roles in numerous motion pictures through the 1970s and early 80s. Later, she established herself as a household name for portraying motherly roles in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Since then, she successfully transitioned to television and appeared in numerous shows, including sitcoms, soap operas, and Netflix originals.

Naseeruddin Shah is an Indian film and stage actor and director, and a prominent figure in Indian parallel cinema. Shah has won numerous awards in his career, including three National Film Awards, three Filmfare Awards and an award at the Venice Film Festival. The Government of India has honoured him with the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan awards for his contributions to Indian cinema. Shah has also appeared in the Pakistani Film Industry, Lollywood, through the films Khuda Kay Liye and Zinda Bhaag.

Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi films. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the coming of age of modern Indian playwriting in Kannada.He was a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour conferred in India.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Amrish Lal Puri (June 22, 1932 - January 12, 2005) was an iconic theater and film actor from India, who was a key player in the Indian theater movement that picked up steam in the 1960s. He worked with notable playwrights of the time, such as Satyadev Dubey and Girish Karnad. However, he is primarily remembered for essaying some iconic negative roles in Hindi cinema. He is most remembered for his role as Mogambo in the Hindi film Mr India (1987). As Mola Ram in the Hollywood film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), he crossed over to international cinema as well. Description above from the Wikipedia article Amrish Puri, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was a Bengali Indian filmmaker, widely regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century. Ray was born in the city of Calcutta into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and literature. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948) during a visit to London. Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He was also a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, calligrapher, music composer, graphic designer and film critic. He authored several short stories and novels, primarily aimed at children and adolescents. Feluda, the sleuth, and Professor Shonku, the scientist in his science fiction stories, are popular fictional characters created by him. He was awarded an honorary degree by Oxford University. Ray's first film, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. This film, along with Aparajito (1956), and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959) form The Apu Trilogy. Ray did the scripting, casting, scoring, and editing, and designed his own credit titles and publicity material. Ray received many major awards in his career, including 32 Indian National Film Awards, a number of awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies, and an Academy Honorary Award in 1992. The Government of India honored him with the Bharat Ratna in 1992.

Veena (4 July 1926 – 14 November 2004), also known as Veena Kumari, real name Tajour Sultana, was an Indian actress. Veena was born as Tajour Sultana on 4 July 1926 in Quetta, Baluchistan, Pakistani. At some point of time, her family shifted to Lahore and she belonged to Lahore's Chuna Mandi.[1] She married actor-hero Al Nasir in 1947 and had two children. She started out playing heroine roles in pre-partition films. She made her debut with Garib and Gawandhi (1942) at around sixteen years of age. Garib was made in Urdu and Gawandhi was made in Punjabi and directed by Mehboob Khan. In Garib, she played the role of Lata and in Gawandhi she played heroine opposite Shyam, who played the hero. She became known for her roles in pre-partition Hindi and Urdu films. Her early years in films came with films such as Najma (1943), Phool (1945) and Humayun (1945). Her last film before the Partition of India was Rajputani (1946), in which she played a supporting role. She decided to remain in India after the partition, and she acted through the mid-to-late-1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. She played roles in big productions such as Halaku (1956), Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958), Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), Taj Mahal (1963) (for which she received the Filmfare's Award for Best Supporting Actress), Do Raaste (1969) and Pakeezah (1972). She retired in 1983 after the release of Razia Sultan (1983) in which she played Empress Shah Turkhan. She died in Bombay in 2004 after 21 years of retirement when she was 78 years old after suffering from a protracted illness. She had appeared in over 70 feature films in a career spanning 41 years (1942 till 1983).