Shakti Samanta

Born in Burdwan, Shakti Samanta built a career across Hindi and Bengali cinema.

Shakti Samanta. Low-resolution historical portrait from Wikipedia’s image record, which credits Yahoo! Movies. Copyright retained by the original rights holder; the record identifies this as a non-free image.

Bengali & Hindi cinema

Life and work

Director and producer · Founder of Shakti Films

Born in Burdwan, Shakti Samanta built a career across Hindi and Bengali cinema. He founded Shakti Films in 1957. The company’s account credits him with directing 43 feature films, including six in Bengali, and lists Howrah Bridge, Aradhana, Kati Patang, Amar Prem and Amanush among his best-known works.^[1]

His work in both languages provides a link between Bengal’s cultural life and a wider film audience. The studio records Filmfare Best Film awards for Aradhana, Anuraag and Amanush.^[1]

This profile follows the notable-person list in Wikipedia’s Aguri article. The biographical sources cited here document the person’s life and work.^[2]

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Notes & sources

Shakti Samanta — Shakti Films / Aradhana Films biography. Studio account read directly. It gives 1925 as the birth year, differing from the 1926 widely reported elsewhere; this profile therefore omits the disputed birth year. No portrait from the studio is reproduced without reuse permission. Source details
“Aguri (caste)” — reference article and bibliography. The listed community connections are attributed to this article. Life and career accounts are separately sourced; the underlying books have not all been checked. Source details