The country's coveted cinema award - Filmfare - is all set to make its debut to honour films in eastern India.
Termed as 'Vivel Filmfare Awards East', cinemas in Bengali, Oriya and Assamese will now vie for the coveted trophy, which was earlier confined to Bollywood.
"We from the Tollygunje film industry will dazzle the eyes of the audience on the award ceremony evening here, which will be no less than the razzmatazz of the Filmfare functions in Mumbai," Prosenjit Chatterjee, Bengali film industry icon, said.
"We are making over 100 films in Tollygunje a year. We are happy that the resurgence of Bengali film industry in the past few years and the recognition it has earned here and abroad has now reached another benchmark," the 'Dosar' actor added.
Tarun Rai of Worldwide Media said, "To cite the buoyancy factor of Mumbai film industry we refer to the fact of over 100 films being made there. Now after getting to know that an equal number of films are being made here, we can say the two Filmfare awards can be equals in terms of excellence."
"May be we should have stepped into the Eastern turf earlier," he added.
There will be 21 categories of awards for Bengali films, and four each for Assamese and Oriya.
"Bengali, Oriya and Assamese films have contributed to the resurgence of Indian film industry in past decade. We wish to recognise it as part of the premier Filmfare award initiative," Sandeep Kaul, Chief Executive Officer, Vivel Personal Care Products said.
The first Filmfare award took place in 1954.
