BHARATI PAWASKAR
Is there any discrimination in our film industry regarding the gender? Is Bollywood gender biased? Do women filmmakers have to prove themselves before the audience and the producers accept them? Does the success or failure of first film teach you something and is care taken not to repeat the same mistakes? Is there any scarcity of good writers? These were the questions that three women filmmakers - Meghna Gulzar, Gauri Shinde and Leena Yadav answered in the ‘In Conversation’ session ‘Calling the Shots - Women directors in Indian cinema’ with Shashank Khaitan at IFFI 2018.
Sharing the cine world with challenging filmmakers Aparna Sen, Deepa Mehta, Meghna Gulzar, Zoya Akhtar, Gauri Shinde, Konkona Sen Sharma, Alankrita Shrivastava, Gurindar Chadha, Aparna Sanyal, Satarupa Sanyal, Radhika Rao, Mallikar Sarabhai, Shobhna Samarth who have grabbed the attention of audience with their strong story sense and attempts to redefine the Indian cinema, the young set of directors have created their niche with their path breaking films..
Speaking of her own experiences Gauri Shinde, an Indian ad-film and feature film director has made her directional debut with the highly acclaimed English Vinglish (2012), which marked the comeback of actress Sridevi, shares, “When you see there were inspiring men and women in the film fraternity, you feel you too can do it. Regarding the story of English Vinglish, Gauri says that it was a unique, middle class woman centric story.
“I want to tell stories of women which are not told often,” states Gauri who has made over 100 advertising films and short films; her short film Oh Man! (2001) was selected for the Berlin Film Festival.
Meghna Gulzar, the only daughter of lyricist and poet Gulzar and actress Raakhee, is also the author of a book about her father, titled ‘Because He Is’. A very sensitive poet herself, Meghna started her writing career as a freelance writer and her poetry was published in anthologies of the Poetry Society of India. After completing her graduation in Sociology, she worked with noted filmmaker Saeed Akhtar Mirza as an assistant director. In 1995, she completed a short course in filmmaking in New York.
Upon her return, she joined her father, writer-director Gulzar, as an assistant on his films Maachis and Hu Tu Tu. Meghna simultaneously began scripting her own film along with directing documentaries for Doordarshan and music videos for several music albums.
Meghna who directed her first film, ‘Filhaal’, in 2002 says that this film did not make it to box office. “It was a commercial failure,” she admitted and added, “I did my second film after seven years. Meghna’s latest film ‘Raazi’ was hit and it made a business of Rs 100 crore. “No one knew it would be so successful,” smiles Meghna who shares another secret that her first script was a dark comedy.
Leena Yadav who started her career in the television industry and gradually moved on to making feature films, had her first international feature film, Parched, premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. Born to an Indian Army General in Madhya Pradesh, she graduated with Economics honours from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Delhi. She did Mass Communications from Sophia College, Mumbai.
Married to Aseem Bajaj, an Indian cinematographer and film producer, Leena is captivated by the job of film edition while she was working with a diploma in mass communications background. She learned Film editing. Without working as an assistant to anyone, she learned about direction and script writing from editing itself. While working as an editor for ‘ad films’- corporate shows “ and television serials, she got an offer to direct Television (TV) show This Week That Year for Star Movies. With success, she floated her own production house with Nikhil Kapoor to produce and direct shows for Star Bestsellers.
As a TV show’s director, she directed both fiction and non-fiction for almost 12 years. As a mainstream film director, ‘Shabd’ was her directorial debut with unconventional storyline released in 2005. Teen Patti was her second film after a gap of five years. And ‘Parched’ was her third. Her latest movie is ‘Rajma Chawal’.
