Actress Nandita Das, the dusky beauty from Bengal, has bagged the 'Best Actress' award in the Santa Monica film festival held at USA for her performance in the Jagmohan Mundhra film 'Bawander' (Sandstorm).

The film depicts the true life incident of a gang rape on a low-caste woman ('Sanwari' played by Das), by upper caste men in Rajasthan, for speaking against the prevalent system of child marraiges.

The actress was specially invited at the award ceremony held yesterday where she was presented with the award, an official release stated here today.

Nandita, an actress of immense talent and conviction, has to her credit sterling performances in films like 'Fire', which hogged the controversial limelight, '1947 Earth', 'Rockford', 'Hari-Bhari' 'Ek Alag Mausam' and regional films like 'Deveeri'.

Her film 'Water' with Shabana Azmi fell into controversy and is in the cans. In the recently concluded Mumbai International Film Festival, she had four of her films shown including 'Bawander'.