The little-known actress, who has worked primarily as a production designer in Mumbai and lives in Goa, won the Best Actress award in the Un Certain Regard segment of the festival.
Sengupta won the award for her serious role in Bulgarian director Constanti Bojanov's film 'The Shameless', which also stars renowned actress Mitya Vashishtha. The film was shot in India and Nepal for over one and a half months.
Bojanov, an award-winning director who, incidentally, is Anasuya's Facebook friend, surprised her when one day suddenly he asked her to send him an audition tape. That was the beginning of the Jadavpur University graduate's acting career.
The Kolkata-born budding actress's previous credits include being the production designer on Srijit Mukherjee's 'Forget Me Not' in Netflix's 202 Satyajit Ray Anthology and 'Masaba Masaba'. She plays Renuka, a street girl who takes refuge in a community of North Indian sex workers after fleeing Delhi after being accused of murder.
The film's story focuses on Renuka's illicit love affair with a teenage girl named Devika, played by Omar Shetty, who is initially forbidden from going into sex work due to her physical ailments, but not for long.
Receiving the award, a "shaken" Anasuya dedicated it to "the queer community and other marginalized communities for so bravely fighting a battle that they really shouldn't have to fight".
Her voice shaking with emotion, drawing repeated applause, she concluded her brief acceptance speech by saying, "We don't have to be the colonized to know how miserable the colonizers are."
Sengupta won the award for her serious role in Bulgarian director Constanti Bojanov's film 'The Shameless', which also stars renowned actress Mitya Vashishtha. The film was shot in India and Nepal for over one and a half months.
Bojanov, an award-winning director who, incidentally, is Anasuya's Facebook friend, surprised her when one day suddenly he asked her to send him an audition tape. That was the beginning of the Jadavpur University graduate's acting career.
The Kolkata-born budding actress's previous credits include being the production designer on Srijit Mukherjee's 'Forget Me Not' in Netflix's 202 Satyajit Ray Anthology and 'Masaba Masaba'. She plays Renuka, a street girl who takes refuge in a community of North Indian sex workers after fleeing Delhi after being accused of murder.
The film's story focuses on Renuka's illicit love affair with a teenage girl named Devika, played by Omar Shetty, who is initially forbidden from going into sex work due to her physical ailments, but not for long.
Receiving the award, a "shaken" Anasuya dedicated it to "the queer community and other marginalized communities for so bravely fighting a battle that they really shouldn't have to fight".
Her voice shaking with emotion, drawing repeated applause, she concluded her brief acceptance speech by saying, "We don't have to be the colonized to know how miserable the colonizers are."
