Producer Guneet Monga is set to be honoured as a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier dans I'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), which is the second highest civilian honour of France.
Luminaries such as Amitabh Bachchan, Nandita Das, Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan have been conferred the same accolade.
Monga earlier became one of the first Indian producers to be inducted into the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. The producer is also a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nominee, having backed films such as The Lunchbox (2013), Masaan (2015), Haraamkhor (2017) and Soorarai Pottru (2020) as well as the Academy Award-winning short film Period: End Of Sentence (2020).
In a collaborative effort to uplift Indian female content creators across the globe, Monga co-founded the collective Indian Women Rising which aided the run of the critically acclaimed short film Bittu (2021) at the Oscars.
The producer will be felicitated in a ceremony in New Delhi on 13 April by the ambassador of France to India, on behalf of the French authorities.