Often actors choose the movies they want to front. But Celina Jaitly believes that her next movie, Nibedita, chose her. The actor, who is returning to face the camera six years after the short film, Season’s Greetings (2020), will step into the role of Irish-Indian educator and social activist Sister Nivedita in the biopic directed by Ram Kamal Mukherjee.

Set to roll in early 2027, Nibedita will chronicle how Margaret Elizabeth Noble met Swami Vivekananda in London and was so influenced by his teachings that she moved to Calcutta in 1898.

Over the following years, she — having adopted the name Nivedita — turned a passionate advocate for girls’ education and women’s empowerment in India. For Jaitly, it’s a matter of pride to portray the activist.

“I never imagined that four years after collaborating with Ram Kamal Mukherjee for Season's Greetings, our paths would cross for a story of such spiritual significance. As a little girl, I wandered through the peaceful grounds of Sister Nivedita’s last home in Darjeeling, not knowing that one day I would be entrusted with bringing her life to audiences,” she said.

According to the National Film Award-winning director, Sister Nivedita’s life journey is a story “waiting to be told”, and Jaitly, the right choice for it. He shared, “While making Binodiini [2025], I was reading books on Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. That’s when I came across Sister Nivedita’s journey, and decided to make a movie.”