Revision as of 01:49, 7 September 2014

MegaMiss North East 2007 Geetanjali Thapa (Sikkim) went on to win the the best actor award at the Los Angeles Film Festival

Claim to fame

In 2014 Thapa is India’s leading actress on the international art film circuit. None of her films had been released commercially in India till Sept 2014, but she had established herself as India’s Queen of Indie, as India Today called her.

Personal details

Born: 1988, in Sikkim

Modelling

Thapa was a fashion model during her college days in Kolkata.

Notable assignment: The L’Oreal advertisement with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

Her films

Her first film, which was never released had her act opposite Ranvir Shorey. She had just completed college and portrayed a half-Indian, half-Chinese woman with straight hair who works in a Chinese restaurant in Kolkata.

I.D.

I.D. (dir: Kamal KM) was her first film to be released. She plays the happy go lucky Charu, a twenty-something woman in Mumbai, struggling to get a career. Along comes a worker to paint her apartment’s wall. When he falls unconscious, Charu realises that it is his responsibility to take him to a hospital. She also tries to find out who he is.

Thapa won best the Best Performance in the Narrative Competition at the Los Angeles Film Festival and and best actress award at the Madrid Film Festival. The film was screened in New York and Australia

The Narrative Feature Competition Jury’s citation at Los Angeles said: “Thapa’s performance is recognized in part for her ability to win over the audience’s empathy for a character that initially lacks, indeed even resists, empathy. Rarely conversational, her ability to speak volumes with gesture and silence is a revelation to the audience. With an onscreen presence that commands attention, we see her rising star as something that excites us as filmmakers, and we are privileged to bear witness to the start of Thapa’s very promising career.”

Best actress at Imagine India International Film Festival, Madrid.

The film was co-produced by Resul Pookutty, Madhu Neelakandan, Rajeev Ravi, B. Ajith Kumar, Sunil Babu.

Liar’s Dice

Liar’s Dice (dir: Geetu Mohandas) won Thapa the Indian National Award for best actress. It was premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival. The film was also screened in the World Cinema Dramatic competition section at the Sundance Film Festival, 2014. Competed at MAMI.

Co-stars: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Geetanjali Thapa and Manya Gupta.

The film is about a young Himachali village woman whose husband, a labourer, goes missing. She wants to look for him, but the social set up of her village is scandalised by the thought of her setting out to look for him. She takes her daughter along as she searches for her. En route they meet a carefree army deserter who aids them, but not selflessly.

Monsoon Shootout

Monsoon Shootout (2013/ dir: Amit Kumar): premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

Tigers

(Earlier titled White Lies ) (2014) directed by Oscar-winning film maker Danis Tanovic. The leading actor is Emraan Hashmi.

Zainab (Thapa) is the wife of Ayaan (Emraan Hashmi), a salesman in Pakistan, in this thriller drama.