Having been part of the entertainment industry for almost two decades now, actor-director Tannishtha Chatterjee has dabbled in various genres and platforms.

Her latest web release, Lihaaf, an adaptation of Ismat Chughtai’s controversial story from 1942, which alludes to a same sex relationship between two women, has already won 11 awards at film festivals.

Elaborating on the relevance of the story even after all these years, Chatterjee says, “We are going in cycles. There was a time when artistes were getting more freedom and pushing boundaries. Now, more than the government, we are censoring ourselves.”

Chatterjee, 40, pins the backlash Chughtai’s story received in 1942 on society’s struggle with acceptance but feels that representation of LGBTQ characters have ‘definitely increased’ in films lately. “With creators, producers, platforms and makers, there’s a silent mandate to be inclusive and include all genders and LGBTQ characters. The more we weave them in as characters of a story, the more normal it will become with society,” she notes.

Her unreleased directorial debut Roam Rome Mein, got positive reviews from international critics and even won her Asian Filmmaker Of The Year at Busan International Film Festival, 2019. Indeed, there was a phase when she was really nervous about the project. She recalls being warned by her casting director when two stern Italian critics turned up to watch the film at the Rome International Film Festival. “She told me that I shouldn’t feel bad if they ripped my film apart. And I thought, they will write in Italian so not many will get to know. But they actually understood my film and I felt really happy and elated,” she signs off.