image of Karuna Banerjee
Birthday: Dec 25, 1919
Place of Birth: Khulna, Bangladesh

Karuna Banerjee

Karuna Banerjee (Bengali: করুণা ব্যানার্জী) was a Bengali actress best known for her role in Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959) as the long suffering mother, Sarbajaya. She was nominated for Best Actress at the 1959 BAFTA Awards for her performance in Aparajito (1956), the second part of The Apu Trilogy. She appeared in a number of other films after that, including Ray's Devi (1960) and Kanchenjungha (1962). She graduated from the Jogamaya Devi College, an affiliated women's college of the University of Calcutta. Banerjee's acting career expanded over more than two decades in Bengali cinema and theatre. She is best known for her memorable performance as Sarbajaya, the mother in the first two parts of Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali (1955) and Aparajito (1956). Her performance in the latter earned her a Best Actress nomination at the 1959 BAFTA Awards. She acted in a few more films, including two more by Ray, two by Mrinal Sen, and one by Ritwik Ghatak that was never officially released.

Filmography
Movie Cast Year
Aparajito Sarbojaya Ray 1956
The Apu Trilogy Sarbojaya Ray 1970
Manmoyee Girls' School 1958
Kanchenjungha Labanya Roy Chaudhuri 1962
Calcutta 71 1972
Devi Harasundari 1960
Interview 1971
Pather Panchali Sarbojaya Ray 1955
Shubha Bibaha Meja-boudi 1970
The Creative Person: Satyajit Ray Self 1967
Headmaster Labanya 1959
Apur Panchali (Archive Footage) 2014
Kanchenjunga Labanya Roy 1970
Series Cast Year
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