An independent community heritage project
Aguri HeritageUGRA KSHATRIYA · WEST BENGAL
Contribute

The heritage projectPeopleShakti Samanta

Shakti Samanta

Sourced from the Aguri Heritage project.
https://aguri-heritage.in/person-shakti-samanta
Original project material: all rights reserved. Other material retains its own rights. Copyright & reuse

Born in Burdwan, Shakti Samanta built a career across Hindi and Bengali cinema.

Last updated:

Portrait of film director and producer Shakti Samanta
Shakti Samanta. Low-resolution historical portrait from Wikipedia’s image record, which credits Yahoo! Movies. Copyright retained by the original rights holder; the record identifies this as a non-free image.
Cite this page

Aguri Heritage. “Shakti Samanta.” Last updated: . https://aguri-heritage.in/person-shakti-samanta.

Citing this page does not grant permission to republish it. Copyright & reuse.

Bengali & Hindi cinema

Life and work

Director and producer · Founder of Shakti Films

Born in Burdwan, Shakti Samanta built a career across Hindi and Bengali cinema. He founded Shakti Films in 1957. The studio credits him with directing 43 feature films, six of them in Bengali. His best-known works include Howrah Bridge, Aradhana, Kati Patang, Amar Prem and Amanush.[1]

His work connected the two film industries through productions made in both languages. A Ministry of Information and Broadcasting retrospective in 2009 highlighted Amanush’s part in developing this practice. Its announced programme placed Amar Prem at the opening of a season of his films at New Delhi’s Siri Fort Auditorium.[2]

Beyond directing and producing, Samanta held a national role in film administration. The Central Board of Film Certification records his tenure as chairman from 1 April 1991 to 25 June 1998.[3]

This profile follows the notable-person list in Wikipedia’s Aguri article. The biographical sources cited here document the person’s life and work.[4]

Rivers of CinemaAn illustration inspired by this life and work

Explore all featured personalities →

How the collection was selected

Notes & sources

  1. Shakti Samanta — Shakti Films / Aradhana Films biography. Birth year 1925 differs from the widely reported 1926; the profile omits it. The precise language/category of the claimed Amanush Best Film award remains unresolved and is not used. No studio portrait is reused. Source details
  2. Ambika Soni to inaugurate retrospective of Shakti Samanta Films — PIB, 8 July 2009. Used as an announced programme and official appraisal, without claiming that all scheduled events occurred. Source details
  3. Central Board of Film Certification — List of Chairpersons. Official tenure register read directly. Source details
  4. “Aguri (caste)” — reference article and bibliography. The listed community connections are attributed to this article. Life and career accounts are separately sourced; the underlying books have not all been checked. Source details

Search the heritage project

Enter a word or phrase to begin.

For Bengali text inside the journals, use the journal reader.