Showing posts with label Rohena Gera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rohena Gera. Show all posts
Film festivals give voice to Indian female filmmakers
8:03 AM
Juhi Chakraborty (HINDUSTAN TIMES; August 9, 2021)
There is euphoria, in general, about how the film world is acknowledging that female voices have been underrepresented, and now making amends. While Cannes Film Festival, in a first, reportedly had 20 female filmmakers in its Official Selection, women directors accounted for 44% of the competition at Venice Film Festival last year, according to Variety. At the Toronto Film Festival last year, women makers were behind nearly half of the films screened.
Rohena Gera, whose film Sir toured several global film festivals before releasing in India on an OTT platform, feels such screenings give massive reassurance to filmmakers, about their product. “Film festivals are providing a great platform for voices of female filmmakers,” she adds.
“Film festivals allow films that may not necessarily be able to have a commercial platform, to be showcased,” opines filmmaker Gauri Shinde, adding, “They also look out for unique talent and it’s extremely encouraging to all kinds of filmmakers.”
Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM), too, saw a record number of 32 women filmmakers whose films will be screened this year. National Award-winning director Rima Das, whose film For Each Other will be screened at IFFM, is happy that a change is set in motion. “It may take another 10 years to see significant change. But, I’m happy that there is a serious attempt to see stories from a woman’s voice and perspective,” adds the Village Rockstars (2017) director.
Makers of documentaries and short films, too, are getting recognition. Director Karishma Dube, whose short film Bittu will be screened at IFFM, says, “Making a short film comes with no guarantee that it will find an audience or a platform, so for the film to find a home across the world, it’s a massive honour for me. I hope I can attend the festival in person, someday soon.”
Akriti Singh, whose directorial debut Toofaan Mail was recently named best film (youth choice) at the UK Asian Film Festival, believes such a fest is a great platform to showcase a film, especially for newcomers. “It gives validation, and back home, amplifies chances of getting potential buyers as well,” says Singh, who also stars in the film.
Goodbye, tragic martyr in white saree. Hello, merry widow
7:59 AM
In Lipstick Under My Burkha, the 55-year-old widow played by Ratna Pathak Shah is an avid reader of erotic novels
Widowed women change their colours on screen as filmmakers finally focus on their individuality
Sonam Joshi (THE TIMES OF INDIA; April 19, 2021)
Many films like Pagglait are now stepping away from the traditional stereotypes of the widow as a tragic, melodramatic and motherly figure. Widowhood becomes a trigger for women to rediscover themselves, and find out what it means to live life on their own terms.
Pagglait’s lead character was inspired by the women in his family, says director Umesh Bist, especially an aunt who took up a job in her late husband’s company despite not having studied much. “After my father’s death, I remember telling my mother I wanted to see her as my mother, and not a widow, that she could continue to wear bangles or coloured saris and enjoy the food she used to rather than give it up,” he says. “I didn’t want to see widowhood as a defining character trait but just one of the circumstances in life.”
If Pagglait’s Sandhya discovers her agency only by the end of the film, the young widow Ratna in the film Is Love Enough - Sir exercises hers at every step of the story. After her husband’s death, Ratna leaves her village to work in Mumbai as a domestic help, trains herself in tailoring and dreams of a better life for herself and her younger sister. Though the film addresses the class divide through a love story between Ratna and her employer, it also follows her journey. “She turns extreme adversity into an opportunity for herself, telling her boss: ‘life khatam nahin hoti’,” director Rohena Gera says.
Something similar happens in the film Once Again in which a financially independent middle-aged widow who runs a restaurant in Mumbai starts a telephonic romance with an ageing actor. “We as a society are far ahead of our storytelling — so many women live like this and we are not being told these stories,” says director Kanwal Sethi. “It was important that the woman wins on all fronts, as a lover and as a mother…She can finally feel the sensuality of her person and focus on her needs,” he says.
Other portrayals take a more subtle view of freedom. In the film Aise Hee, an elderly widow in Allahabad who we only know as Mrs Sharma suddenly gets the freedom to do little things, like eating ice-cream at the mall, getting a pedicure, learning embroidery and walking by the river. “Her husband’s death gives her the space to think that there are options which she never thought of earlier,” director Kislay says. “In real life, widowhood marks a break, where a lot of women change because they are forced to be more independent.” Mrs Sharma wants to preserve this new freedom, refusing to let her granddaughter move in because she likes being alone.
Kislay says that the film is a departure from the 1957 film Mother India, which in many ways is the epitome of the tragic, sacrificial widow in Hindi film. In one scene, the TV screen in Mrs Sharma’s house literally plays a scene of Nargis saving her children from floods. “Mrs Sharma could have been a Mother India, but what if the person doesn’t want to,” asks Kislay. The role has been essayed by septuagenarian Mumbai-based actor Mohini Sharma, who lives alone herself. There is a similar tone of independence in Tanuja Chandra’s documentary film Aunty Sudha, Aunty Radha, on her elderly widowed aunts who give each other companionship in their sunset years.
Gera, who got many messages from many women struggling with social judgement after their husband’s deaths, says it is important to depart from patriarchal norms. “We are still far from being an egalitarian society,” she says. “It’s great if filmmakers can show what we can aspire to: encouraging women to move on, rather than idealising a tragic figure who has given up on herself.”
Male gaze vs female gaze: Do female directors tell women stories better?
8:25 AM
Juhi Chakraborty (HINDUSTAN TIMES; January 31, 2021)
Female-driven stories told by female filmmakers have been gathering steam in the past few years. Films such as Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016), Raazi (2018) and Panga (2020), and the recent ones such as Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (2020), Tribhanga and Sir have received immense love from the audience. These have been hailed mainly because of the treatment given to the stories attributed to the women directors behind them. This has also led to the discussion whether when it comes to women-centric stories, female filmmakers are more inept to tell them with sensitivity and correct treatment.
“There is something called the female gaze that comes into play. It is about how you write characters, how you shoot them and your point of view. That also changes the audiences’ point of view because they see the characters the way you present them. Right now, we are still living in cinema that is moulded by men. Everything is determined by the male gaze,” shares Alankrita Shrivastava, who has helmed Lipstick Under My Burkha and Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare.
Actor Richa Chadha, who worked with filmmaker Ashwiny Iyer Tiwary last year in Panga does not think there is much difference between how a female or a male directs a film but she says it stands true in the case of few their subjects. “In my experience, it’s not been that. But when I watch something like Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare, it appears a lot softer than other films. Even the topic of sexuality is handled sensitively,” she says.
Rohena Gera, who handled the story about a romance between a domestic help and employer in Sir, says it is difficult to say whether it is about gender.
She says, “Who is to say that as a sensitive man wouldn’t make a sensitive female-centric story. The stories one tells as a filmmaker is also because of his/her exposure to things. I find it difficult to categorize things as gender.”
Having worked with a female director in one of her most notable films, Tanuja Chandra’s Dushman (1998), Kajol recently collaborated with Renuka Shahane on her directorial venture, Tribhanga. The actor says, “I didn’t consider Renuka as a director. She knew what she wanted, her gender notwithstanding.”
Shrivastava feels that the onus is also on women directors. “That’s because not all have that female gaze. And, because the place is so lonely they prefer to perpetuate the status quo that just continues this male, patriarchal gaze,” she adds.
71st Cannes Film Festival: End of an era; Anupama Chopra writes
8:02 AM
Cancelled
press screenings, selfie ban, 82 women protesting gender disparity… in
the words of Fest director Thierry Frémaux, the event was ‘historic when
it shouldn’t be’
Anupama Chopra (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 18, 2018)
Between the official selection and the market, the 71st Cannes Film Festival screened hundreds of films but perhaps the most striking visual at the 10-day movie extravaganza was 82 women lined up on the steps on that world famous red carpet. These included Oscar-winning actress and head of the main competition jury Cate Blanchett, 89-year-old French director Agnes Varda (the only female director to be awarded an honorary Oscar by the Academy), other jury members such as Kristen Stewart and Ava duVernay, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and assorted women from varying fields of film, including our very own Nandita Das and Rasika Dugal. Incredibly all of them were protesting the festival.
Why 82? It’s the number of films by female directors that have premiered in competition at Cannes in the festival’s 71-year history. By contrast, 1,645 films by male directors have received the same honour. Only one woman, Jane Campion for The Piano, has ever won the festival’s top prize — the Palme d’Or. This year too, out of 21 films in the main competition, only three were directed by women. To complicate matters more, the festival remains steeped in tradition (one of my colleagues was turned away from a red-carpet screening for wearing silver sneakers). In the era of #TimesUp and #MeToo, these rules chafe and women decided to call out the festival — on the festival steps itself. Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate of the festival, called the event “historic when it shouldn’t be.” He said, “And yet it also means that it is the end of an era, the end of a cycle.”
Change was certainly in the air at Cannes. One of the biggest was the cancellation of the 8.30 am press screenings. There are approximately 4,000 accredited journalists at the festival. Until this year, critics would see the competition films every morning and reviews would be widely circulated before the red-carpet screening in the evening. So, filmmakers and actors would be forced to smile for the flashbulbs even after a critical drubbing. Instant reactions to films on social media made the situation even more fraught. This year, the morning press screenings were cancelled. Critics were shown films at the same time as the red-carpet screenings, which led to much moaning. Selfies and photography on the red carpet were also banned.
There was an overwhelming sense that the festival was slow and subdued. There was talk of brands cutting marketing spends and fewer splashy parties and functions. Halfway through the festival, the influential trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter carried an article titled ‘Cannes: 5 Signs of a Festival in Decline.’
Hollywood studios certainly seem to be rethinking their Cannes strategy. A few weeks before the festival kicked off on May 8th, Netflix pulled out, taking with it big-ticket titles like Alfonso Cuarón’s new film Roma. Though the festival juries featured A-list talent like Blanchett, Stewart and Benicio del Toro, the films in competition were less star-heavy and therefore the red carpet, less dazzling. The only big-ticket Hollywood film at the festival was Solo: A Star Wars Story. There was chatter of several major films not being screened at Cannes by design. The studios and sales agents backing them chose instead to go for the fall festivals — Toronto, Telluride and Venice — which gives the films, a better shot at the Oscars. The only best picture Oscar winners in the past 25 years to have debuted in Cannes are The Artist and No Country For Old Men. For the Academy Awards at least, Cannes is not an essential destination.
Interestingly, while the festival might be losing its allure for the West, Cannes is fast becoming a must-be-seen-at destination for the Indian film Industry. The two Indian films in official selection — Nandita Das’ Manto (in Un Certain Regard) and Rohena Gera’s Sir (in the sidebar Critics’ Week) played to strong reviews. The stars dazzled on the red carpet — this year, the regulars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor were joined by Kangana Ranaut and Huma Qureshi. I met with all of them and the overarching theme seemed to be — own the red carpet by being authentic and having fun. “The endgame,” Deepika said emphatically, “is joy.”
Meanwhile Manoj Bajpayee and director Devashish Makhija were drumming up media for their new project Bhonsle. Dhanush promoted his first international venture — The Extraordinary Journey Of The Fakir. I spotted Subhash Ghai at the India Pavilion and filmmaker Q on the streets. I also bumped into a beaming Nawazuddin Siddiqui the evening before the Manto screening. Nawaz is a Cannes veteran but this time, he arrived in a new designer suit, made for the occasion by Manish Malhotra, who incidentally was also at the festival, representing an ice cream brand. CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi also attended as did representatives from over 100 Indian film establishments.
Undeniably, the Indian presence at the festival has increased exponentially since Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas re-opened doors in 2002. Brands are increasingly seeing the platform as a short-cut to visibility but until more Indian films create greater traction, the impact will be limited. Because no matter how much coverage the red carpet gets, Cannes is first and foremost about cinema. To be taken seriously here, we need more films than fashion.
Frémaux, discussing the selfie ban with The Hollywood Reporter, put it eloquently — “You don’t come to Cannes to be seen, but to see.”
Between the official selection and the market, the 71st Cannes Film Festival screened hundreds of films but perhaps the most striking visual at the 10-day movie extravaganza was 82 women lined up on the steps on that world famous red carpet. These included Oscar-winning actress and head of the main competition jury Cate Blanchett, 89-year-old French director Agnes Varda (the only female director to be awarded an honorary Oscar by the Academy), other jury members such as Kristen Stewart and Ava duVernay, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins and assorted women from varying fields of film, including our very own Nandita Das and Rasika Dugal. Incredibly all of them were protesting the festival.
Why 82? It’s the number of films by female directors that have premiered in competition at Cannes in the festival’s 71-year history. By contrast, 1,645 films by male directors have received the same honour. Only one woman, Jane Campion for The Piano, has ever won the festival’s top prize — the Palme d’Or. This year too, out of 21 films in the main competition, only three were directed by women. To complicate matters more, the festival remains steeped in tradition (one of my colleagues was turned away from a red-carpet screening for wearing silver sneakers). In the era of #TimesUp and #MeToo, these rules chafe and women decided to call out the festival — on the festival steps itself. Thierry Frémaux, General Delegate of the festival, called the event “historic when it shouldn’t be.” He said, “And yet it also means that it is the end of an era, the end of a cycle.”
Change was certainly in the air at Cannes. One of the biggest was the cancellation of the 8.30 am press screenings. There are approximately 4,000 accredited journalists at the festival. Until this year, critics would see the competition films every morning and reviews would be widely circulated before the red-carpet screening in the evening. So, filmmakers and actors would be forced to smile for the flashbulbs even after a critical drubbing. Instant reactions to films on social media made the situation even more fraught. This year, the morning press screenings were cancelled. Critics were shown films at the same time as the red-carpet screenings, which led to much moaning. Selfies and photography on the red carpet were also banned.
There was an overwhelming sense that the festival was slow and subdued. There was talk of brands cutting marketing spends and fewer splashy parties and functions. Halfway through the festival, the influential trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter carried an article titled ‘Cannes: 5 Signs of a Festival in Decline.’
Hollywood studios certainly seem to be rethinking their Cannes strategy. A few weeks before the festival kicked off on May 8th, Netflix pulled out, taking with it big-ticket titles like Alfonso Cuarón’s new film Roma. Though the festival juries featured A-list talent like Blanchett, Stewart and Benicio del Toro, the films in competition were less star-heavy and therefore the red carpet, less dazzling. The only big-ticket Hollywood film at the festival was Solo: A Star Wars Story. There was chatter of several major films not being screened at Cannes by design. The studios and sales agents backing them chose instead to go for the fall festivals — Toronto, Telluride and Venice — which gives the films, a better shot at the Oscars. The only best picture Oscar winners in the past 25 years to have debuted in Cannes are The Artist and No Country For Old Men. For the Academy Awards at least, Cannes is not an essential destination.
Interestingly, while the festival might be losing its allure for the West, Cannes is fast becoming a must-be-seen-at destination for the Indian film Industry. The two Indian films in official selection — Nandita Das’ Manto (in Un Certain Regard) and Rohena Gera’s Sir (in the sidebar Critics’ Week) played to strong reviews. The stars dazzled on the red carpet — this year, the regulars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor were joined by Kangana Ranaut and Huma Qureshi. I met with all of them and the overarching theme seemed to be — own the red carpet by being authentic and having fun. “The endgame,” Deepika said emphatically, “is joy.”
Meanwhile Manoj Bajpayee and director Devashish Makhija were drumming up media for their new project Bhonsle. Dhanush promoted his first international venture — The Extraordinary Journey Of The Fakir. I spotted Subhash Ghai at the India Pavilion and filmmaker Q on the streets. I also bumped into a beaming Nawazuddin Siddiqui the evening before the Manto screening. Nawaz is a Cannes veteran but this time, he arrived in a new designer suit, made for the occasion by Manish Malhotra, who incidentally was also at the festival, representing an ice cream brand. CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi also attended as did representatives from over 100 Indian film establishments.
Undeniably, the Indian presence at the festival has increased exponentially since Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas re-opened doors in 2002. Brands are increasingly seeing the platform as a short-cut to visibility but until more Indian films create greater traction, the impact will be limited. Because no matter how much coverage the red carpet gets, Cannes is first and foremost about cinema. To be taken seriously here, we need more films than fashion.
Frémaux, discussing the selfie ban with The Hollywood Reporter, put it eloquently — “You don’t come to Cannes to be seen, but to see.”
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