Shoma A. Chatterji is an Indian film scholar, author and freelance journalist. She has been the recipient of a number of awards including the

National Film Award for Best Film Critic The National Film Award for Best Film Critic is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of Information and Bro ...

in 1991 and the National Awards for Best Writing on Cinema for her study of the works of

Aparna Sen Aparna Sen (; ) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and actress who is known for her work in Bengali cinema. She has received several accolades as an actress and filmmaker, including nine National Film Awards, six Filmfare Awards East ...

in the publication, ''Parama and Other Outsiders: The Cinema of Aparna Sen'' (2002). Notably, she is the only woman to have won both the national awards. She is the author of several biographies including those on

Pramathesh Barua Pramathesh Chandra Barua (24 October 1903 – 29 November 1951) was an Indian actor, director, and screenwriter of Indian films in the pre-independence era, born in Gauripur, Assam, Gauripur, Dhubri district, Dhubri, Assam. Early life Barua w ...

Ritwik Ghatak Ritwik Kumar Ghatak (; 4 November 19256 February 1976) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, actor and playwright. Widely considered as one of the greatest film makers of all time, his works remained largely underrated and ignored during hi ...

and

Suchitra Sen Suchitra Sen, widely known as the Mahanayika (), was an Indian actress who worked in Cinema of West Bengal, Bengali and Hindi cinema. The movies in which she was paired opposite actor Uttam Kumar became classics in the history of Cinema of Wes ...

. Between 2005–2006, Chatterji was a research fellow at the

National Film Archive of India The National Film Archive of India (NFAI) was established as a media unit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in February 1964. It was a member of the International Federation of Film Archives. In March 2022, it was merged with th ...

, following which between 2006–2007, she was a senior research fellow at the PSBT Delhi and then a senior research fellow at the

Indian Council of Social Science Research The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) is the national body overseeing research in the social sciences in India. It was established in New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delh ...

between 2009–2011. Born and educated in Mumbai, Chatterji has two

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

s in economics and education and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Indian cinema history. Following her education, she was a lecturer in economics at a local college until 1991.

Awards

in 1991 for film criticism in the

Bengali language Bengali, also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Bangla (, , ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. ...

. * Bengal Film Journalists Association’s Best Critic Award in 1998. * National Awards for Best Writing on Cinema in 2003 for a study of the works of

. * Bharat Nirman Award for "excellence in journalism" in 2004. * UNFPA–Laadli Media Special Award for "consistent writing on women’s issues" in 2009. * Kalyan Kumar Mitra Award for "excellence in film scholarship and contribution as a film critic" in 2010. * Lifetime Achievement SAMMAN by the

Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest Service club, service organizations in the world. The self-declared mission of Rotary, as stated on its website, is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, go ...

, Calcutta-Metro City in 2012.

Selected works

* ''The Indian Women's Search for an Identity.'' (1988) Vikas Publishing House. . * ''The Indian Woman in Perspective.'' (1993) Ajanta Publications. . * ''Kamini: And Other Stories.'' (1997) Alka Publications. . *''Subject-cinema, Object-woman: A Study of the Portrayal of Women in Indian Cinema.'' (1998) * ''Baker's Dozen: Short Stories from India.'' (2001) Rupa & Company. . * ''Parama and Other Outsiders: The Cinema of Aparna Sen.'' (2002) Parumita Publications. . * ''Ritwik Ghatak: The Celluloid Rebel.'' (2004) Rupa & Company. . * ''Women in Black, White, and Technicolour.'' (2004) Rupa & Company. . * ''Sinemā śudhu sinemā naẏa'' (Movies are not just movies, 2004) * ''Mrinal Sen: The Survivor.'' (2005) Rupa & Company. . * ''Goddess Kali of Kolkata.'' (2005) UBS Publishers. . * ''Gender and Conflict.'' (2006) UBS Publishers. . * ''P.C Barua.'' (2008) Wisdom Tree Publishers. . * ''Women in Perspective: Essays on Gender Issues.'' (2010) * ''P.C. Barua: Legends of Indian Cinema.'' (Vasudev, Aruna, ed; 2011) SCB Distributors. . * ''100 Years of Jump-cuts and Fade-outs: Tracking Change in Indian Cinema.'' (2014) Rupa & Company. . * ''Filming Reality: The Independent Documentary Movement in India.'' (2015)

SAGE Publications Sage Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent academic publishing company, founded in 1965 in New York City by Sara Miller McCune and now based in the Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, California. Sage ...

. . * ''Suchitra Sen: The Legend and the Enigma.'' (2015)

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...

. . * ''Woman at the Window: The Material Universe of Rabindranath Tagore Through the Eyes of Satyajit Ray.'' (2017)

. . * ''The Cinema of Bimal Roy: An 'Outsider' Within.'' (2017)

. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chatterji, Shoma Living people Indian film critics Indian women film critics 20th-century Indian women writers 20th-century Indian writers 21st-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian writers 1943 births