Farooque, Babita on receiving nat'l film award

Farooque and Babita
Farooque and Babita

Seasoned actors Farooque and Babita have jointly been awarded National Film Award-2016 for lifetime achievement for their outstanding contributions to the film industry.

In a conversation with Prothom Alo, both of the actors shared their feelings of winning the prestigious award on Sunday.

Prothom Alo: You have been awarded National Film Award-2016 for lifetime achievement. The award may have brought more responsibility to you. How do you see this?

Farooque: This is a huge honour. The award is the recognition of my life-long work for the film industry. The government, I think, can do more for the film artistes like honouring us with VIP status. I'm working for the betterment of our film fraternity and I'll keep doing that.

Babita: We, the artistes, remain liable to the society and to the film industry. I cannot express my happiness of receiving this honour. I feel like I have received the recognition of the works I have done for a long period of time. We have to do good works consciously.

Prothom Alo: What do you want to do for the industry?

Farooque: When I think about the industry, I see there are divisions among artistes. But this division should not be there. All should go forward together. The shooting should take place at BFDC (Bangladesh Film Development Corporation). So there are works regarding the BFDC. The present government is open-minded. What I have been saying, these are coming into discussions and one day they will come true. Hope keeps us alive.

Babita: Place must be created for the new ones. There are many fresh talents in the industry. The newbies should concentrate on doing good works. I worked in a number of good films from a kind of passion. I, even, worked for a few films without payment. You have to work in all kinds of films for your survival. But, you should work on good projects to be part of history.

Prothom Alo: You have shared the National Film Award-2016 for lifetime achievement with a legendry actor. Say something about that.

Farooque: Babita worked in Satyajit Ray films. She has international fame. As an actor, I paired up with her in some super-hit films. In personal life, she is a wonderful person, too.

Babita: Farooque bhai is an extraordinary artiste. His role as a village youth is always peerless. From my experience of working with him, I can say he is a great artiste. We paired up in quite a number of films. That pair has been awarded for lifetime work; this is undoubtedly a matter of ecstasy.