Geetanjali Thapa

Geetanjali Thapa is an Indian film actress. She won the National Film Award for Best Actress (2013) for her performance in Liar's Dice.

Geetanjali Thapa
Geetanjali Thapa in 2018
Born
Gangtok, Sikkim, India
NationalityIndian
OccupationActress
Years active2011–present
AwardsBest Performance, Los Angeles Film Festival 2013.[1]
Best Actress, ImagineIndia 2013, Madrid.[2]
Best Actress, 61st National Film Award.[3]
Best Actress, 14th Annual New York Indian Film Festival.[4]

Career

A professional model before joining the film industry, in 2010 she made her feature film debut with Tina Ki Chaabi. Her next film, I.D., directed by Kamal KM won her best actress awards at Los Angeles Film Festival and the Madrid Film Festival.[5] The film premiered at Busan International Film Festival and was selected for several other reputed international festivals. She starred next in Monsoon Shootout, a Hindi noir thriller by Amit Kumar, which was screened at Cannes Film Festival 2013 as part of the Midnight Screenings section, to rave reviews from several international critics. She also appeared in Anurag Kashyap's short film That Day After Everyday, which gathered over 6 million views on YouTube within weeks of release. Her next feature, Geetu Mohandas' Liar's Dice, premiered at the Mumbai Film festival in October 2013 and was screened at Sundance Film Festival and International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2014.[6] Geetanjali, who played the female lead won the best actress award at the 61st National Film Awards. The film was also India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards, winning several other awards at prestigious international film festivals that year.

Thapa's latest release was Academy award winning director Danis Tanovic's Indian film, Tigers, along with Emraan Hashmi, where she plays a Pakistani Muslim woman, Zainab who is also his newly wedded wife.[7][8][9][10] It was selected to screen in the Contemporary World Cinema Section at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Apart from films, she has also appeared in several iconic commercials, her most recent ones including prestigious jewelry brand Tanishq and L'Oreal with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.[11]

In 2016, Thapa starred in the movie Land of the Gods (Dev Bhoomi), playing the role of a young progressive schoolteacher Shaanti, who wants to bring modernity to the village and emphasised on education.[12][13][14] She also starred in Vikramaditya Motwane's survival drama Trapped, where she starred alongside Rajkummar Rao.

In 2018, she starred alongside Zain Khan Durrani in the romantic drama Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz, where she played the role of Archana Pradhan, who works in a creative agency which designs branded memes and lives life to her fullest. She also starred as Minnie Basu, in the drama film Bioscopewala, an adaptation of Tagore's Kabuliwala.

Thapa's latest release in 2019 is the American crime film, Stray Dolls, whose cast includes Olivia DeJonge and Cynthia Nixon.[15][16] She currently starred for the short drama movie Frayed Lines, which is the story about two individuals who don't speak a common language but connect and take a step away from a life they have known. She plays the role of an Assamese migrant worker named Tabu.[17][18]

Personal life

Born and raised in Sikkim, a Himalayan state in India and did her schooling in Sikkim from Don Bosco School, Malbasey and Tashi Namgyal Academy, Gangtok and thereafter, she moved to Kolkata to pursue her graduation. She was a professional model, and won the Mega Miss North East 2007 beauty pageant held at Guwahati, Assam.[19] before entering the film industry.[11][20][21]

Thapa's debut short film was the English language project Myth (2006) directed by Prashant Rasaily, when she was still in school.

Awards

Filmography

Films
Denotes films that have not yet been released
Year Film Role Language Notes
2012 I.D. Charu Hindi Best Performance, Los Angeles Film Festival 2013[1]

Best Actress, ImagineIndia Award 2013, Madrid[2]

2013 Monsoon Shootout Anu Hindi
That Day After Every Day Girl who hits the 'goon in the bus' Hindi
2013 Liar's Dice Kamla Hindi National Film Award for Best Actress[3]

Best Actress, 14th Annual New York Indian Film Festival[4]

2014 Tigers Zainab Hindi
English
German		 2014 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)[22]
2016 Land of the Gods (Dev Bhoomi) Shaanti Hindi
Trapped Noorie Hindi
2018 Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz Archana Pradhan Hindi
Painting Life The Lady in the Guest House English
Bioscopewala Minnie Basu Hindi
2019 Stray Dolls Riz English
2020 Frayed Lines (short movie)[23] Tabu

Television
Year Title Role Network Notes Ref.
2018 Sacred Games Nayanika Sehgal Netflix Season 1

References
  1. "20th LA Film Fest Award". Archived from the original on 25 April 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  2. "ImagineIndia 13th International Film Festival Award". Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  3. "61st National Film Awards Announced" (PDF) (Press release). Press Information Bureau (PIB), India. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
  4. "14th Annual New York Indian Film Festival". Archived from the original on 11 November 2018. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
  5. "I auditioned for White Lies so I could meet Danis: Geetanjali Thapa". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 19 January 2014.
  6. "Liar's Dice: Mumbai Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 18 February 2014. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
  7. "Making a Mark". India Today. Archived from the original on 3 February 2014. Retrieved 25 January 2014.
  8. Ankur Pathak (6 September 2014). "Geetanjali Thapa: I wouldn't want to be cast just because I'm a 'North Easterner'". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 9 September 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
  9. "Emraan Hashmi's turn as an anti–infant formula activist". The Caravan. 15 September 2014.
  10. "Geetanjali Thapa heads to Toronto to promote her new film with the Oscar-winning director Danis Tanovic". India Today. 29 August 2014.
  11. Shaheen Parkar (28 September 2014). "Yet to learn how things work in Bollywood: Geetanjali Thapa". MiD DAY. Archived from the original on 29 September 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
  12. "Film Review: 'Land of the Gods' (Dev Bhoomi)". Variety. 25 September 2016.
  13. "Land of the Gods: A universal story highlighting that some things never change". Cineuropa. 21 March 2017.
  14. "Serbian director puts Uttarakhand on world cinema map". The Hindu. 14 September 2016.
  15. Lowe, Justin (27 April 2019). "'Stray Dolls' Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  16. Donnelly, Matt (23 September 2019). "Samuel Goldwyn Takes North American Rights to 'Stray Dolls'". Variety. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
  17. "Frayed Lines (2019)". IMDB. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  18. "Award-winning short film Frayed Lines explores the complexity of identity at the backdrop of NRC". Firstpost. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  19. "Geetanjali Thapa wins Mega Miss North East". Archived from the original on 7 January 2010.
  20. "Geetanjali Thapa on being low-key and letting her work speak". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  21. "Interview: Geetanjali Thapa, Actor [I.D., Monsoon Shootout]". DearCinema.com. 15 July 2013. Archived from the original on 21 April 2014. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  22. "Tigers". TIFF. Archived from the original on 28 October 2014. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
  23. "Frayed Lines". Frayed Lines. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
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