The Bengal Film Journalists' Association is the oldest Association of Film critics in India, founded in 1937, by the inspiration and determination of the handful of pioneers amongst the then thin section of scribes that were drawn to film journalism with a lofty mission to serve the developing film journalism and film industry.

Members of the Association are drawn from the film section of the entire Press of West Bengal composed of dailies, periodicals and film journals in various languages published from Kolkata. Film correspondents and critics working for any newspaper or periodicals published outside Bengal having their base in Kolkata were also eligible to be members of this Association.

It is not enough to say that this is the oldest Association of its kind in the country, but also the first to institute awards in an endeavor to promote and encourage the production of better films just a year after its inception when the 1st Motion Picture Congress was held in Faridpur (now in Bangladesh) in 1938. Representatives of the association played a vital role in its deliberations. Similarly our Association was fully represented at the Silver Jubilee of the Indian Cinema.

Meena Kumari (1 August 1932 – 31 March 1972), born Mahjabeen Bano, was an Indian movie actress and poetess. She is regarded as one of the most prominent actresses to have appeared on the screens of Hindi Cinema. During a career spanning 30 years from her childhood to her death, she starred in more than ninety films, many of which have achieved classic and cult status today.

Kumari gained a reputation for playing grief-stricken and tragic roles, and her performances have been praised and reminisced throughout the years. Like one of her best-known roles, Chhoti Bahu, in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962), Kumari became addicted to alcohol. Her life and prosperous career were marred by heavy drinking, troubled relationships, an ensuing deteriorating health, and her death from liver cirrhosis in 1972.

Kumari is often cited by media and literary sources as "The Tragedy Queen", both for her frequent portrayal of sorrowful and dramatic roles in her films and her real-life story.

Meena Kumari was the third daughter of Ali Baksh and Iqbal Begum; Khursheed and Madhu were her two elder sisters. At the time of her birth, her parents were unable to pay the fees of Dr. Gadre, who had delivered her, so her father left her at a Muslim orphanage, however, he picked her up after a few hours.

Preeti Sagar is a former Bollywood playback singer who won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer for the folk song Mhare gaon.. in Manthan in 1978 and was previously nominated for the hit song "My Heart is Beating" from Julie (1975).

Preeti is an accomplished singer with basic classical knowledge in music and singing. She shot to instant fame with her English song My Heart is Beating keeps on repeating in Rajesh Roshan's Julie. She won a special Filmfare award for the same.

In spite of all the accolades and the awards somehow she didn't really manage to sustain her position in bollywood. Comparison with Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhosle somehow stunted her growth as a singer and she couldn't carve a niche for herself in the industry.

She decided instead to focus on the children's entertainment and education industry. She worked with Sa Re Ga Ma to create several children's nursery rhyme collections in Hindi and English. She also created a Fairy Tales series.

She now runs her own production company called Angela Films which does advertising, short films and feature-film dubbing. In the 1990s, Angela Films produced the hit children's TV show, Phulwari Bachcho Ki. She was part of jury of the 52nd National Film Awards.

Shatrughan Sinha (Hindi: शत्रुघ्न सिन) born Shatrughan Prasad Sinha on December 9, 1945 is an Indian film actor and politician. Apart from being member of Rajya Sabha twice he was also Union Cabinet Minister of Health and Family Welfare (Jan 2003-May 2004) and Shipping (Aug. 2004). He was elected to 15th Lok Sabha in 2009.

Sinha was born in Patna, Bihar. He was educated in Patna Science College. He is an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India Pune. Currently there's a scholorship being awarded on his name in the institute to Diploma students. He moved to Mumbai where he started his career in the film industry.

Shatrughan Sinha's first acting opportunity was playing a Pakistani military officer in Dev Anand's Prem Pujari. Subsequently, he got a small role as a police inspector in Mohan Sehgal’s Sajan in 1969. The release of Prem Pujari was delayed, so his first released film was Sajan. He played supporting roles in many films before appearing in Gulzar’s Mere Apne in 1971.

He later appeared in Dulal Guha’s Dost in 1974 and in Kalicharan in 1976.

Tannishtha Chatterjee (Devanāgarī: तनिष्ठा चटर्जी, Bengali: তন্নিষ্ঠা চ্যাটার্জী) is an Indian actress.

She is best known in the west for her performance in the British film Brick Lane (2007), the film adaptation of Monica Ali's best selling novel of the same name. She was nominated for the British Independent Film Awards as the best actress for Brick Lane. Her other notables roles have been in Academy Award-winning German director Florian Gallenberger's film, Shadows of Time,Road, Movie with Abhay Deol and Bibar for which she won Best Actress at the 2006 Osian Film Festival and the 2007 BFJA awards.

Chatterjee was born in Pune, Maharashtra to a Bengali Hindu family. Her father was a business executive and mother was a political science professor. Her family traveled and lived out of the country for sometime and then moved to Delhi. She majored in Chemistry at Delhi University and then went to the National School of Drama. Thereafter she worked in India and Europe with well-known theatre directors.