Celebs who passed away in 2018

DOT Desk: The year 2018 saw passing away of prominent celebrities in the realm of art and culture. Below are short profiles of some of the celebrities compiled in order of their time of death.
• Independence Award winning sculptor and freedom fighter Ferdousi Priyabhashini died on March 6 aged 71.
Priyabhashini was the first woman to publicly announce herself a ‘birangona’. She received the 2010 Independence Award for culture.
After the liberation war, Priyabhashini gradually emerged as a sculptor who used waste materials and turned them into sculptures.
• Ekushey Padak winning poet Belal Chowdhury passed away on April 24 at the age of 79.
Born in 1938, Belal Chowdhury emerged as a poet in the 1960s. He was also a prolific writer in other genres like fiction, essays, and translations and has over fifty books to his credit.
He was awarded Ekushey Padak in 2014 for his contributions to literature. Earlier, he received Bangla Academy Literary Award in 1984.
• Popular small screen actress and also a journalist Tazin Ahmed died on May 22. She was 43.
Born on July 30, 1975 in Noakhali district, Tazin made her small screen debut in 1996 through the single episode TV play Shesh Dekha Shekh Noy. She wrote more than 12 plays including Briddhashram, Anur Ekdin and directed a number of plays.
• Octogenarian actress Rani Sarkar passed away at the age of 86 on July 7. In her long career, the actress acted in around 250 films.
In 2014, she was awarded National Film Award in lifetime achievement category for her contributions to film.
• The legendary singer, composer and guitarist Ayub Bachchu, admirably called AB, died on October 18 at the age of 56.
Born in Chattogram in 1962, Bachchu recorded 28 albums during more than four decades of his career as a musician. Bachchu composed 500 songs including famous numbers like Chalo bodle jai, Rupali Guitar, Hanste Dekho and others. He also sang playbacks for films and recorded dozens of songs released in mixed albums. In 1991, Bachchu founded LRB, abbreviation of love runs blind.
• Renowned photographer and cinematographer Anwar Hossain was found dead in a hotel room at Panthapath on December 1.
Anwar came to cinematography with the first film of Sheikh Niyamat Ali’s Surya Dighal Bari in 1979. He has written a number of books on photography.
He captured the liberation war and the movements preceding it.
He won more than 60 international awards in photography. He filmed 15 fictions and 30 documentaries and published eight major photo books.
Anwar has been teaching for the last 40 years.
• Ekushey Padak and National Film Award winning actor-filmmaker Amjad Hossain passed away on December 14 at the age of 76.
Born on 14 August, 1942 in Jamalpur, Amjad Hossain started writing rhymes and poems at an early age. He also wrote short stories, children’s stories and novels. He started his career in film as an actor in 1963. Later, he established himself as a director.
Hossain directed many acclaimed films including Golapi Ekhon Trainey, Sundori, Koshai and others.
He won National Film Award in different categories. Besides, he received many awards including Ekushey Padak, Bangla Academy Literary Award and others.
• National Film Award winning director Saidul Anam Tutul passed away on December 18. He was 68.
Beginning his career as a film editor, Tutul has also directed films, documentaries and teleplays. He debuted as a film director with government grant-winning film Adhiyar in 2003.
Tutul, who won National Film Award in the Best Editor category in 1979 for Surja Dighal Bari, has also worked in acclaimed films.
Tutul, who was the founding general secretary of Directors’ Guild, had lately been busy working on his second feature Kaalbela, another government grant winning film.