Zahrat Ara, who acted in ‘Mukh O Mukhosh’, the first Bengali film made with sound in the then East Pakistan, has died in London, bdnews24.com reports.
In her late 80s, she passed away in an elderly care home on 19 July due to long-term health complications, Ferdaus Rahman, a family friend, confirmed to bdnews24.com.
She will be buried in Norwich, the city where she had settled in before being moved to the old-age home.
The date of the burial would be made known later, Rahman added citing the family.
Directed by Abdul Jabbar Khan who also starred as the male lead (Afzal) alongside female protagonist Kulsum (Purnima Sengupta), ‘Mukh O Mukhosh’, or The Face and the Mask, was released in erstwhile East Pakistan in 1956, nearly two years after the Bengalis forced the Pakistani rulers to officially recognise Bengali as a mother tongue through the Language Movement.
Anger among Bengalis was growing at the time over discrimination by the rulers based in West Pakistan, and their brutal and deadly way of subjugation. Bengalis in the Pakistani film industry were also frustrated as West Bengal in India moved much ahead of the Dhaka filmdom after producing their first Bengali talkie two and a half decades earlier.
