Aparna Sen is an Indian film director, screenwriter and actress of international renown who started her career with Satyajit Ray's 'Teen Kanya'. This is the first ever attempt on film to take stock of her six decades in cinema, as an actress and as a director. The film draws Sen into a conversation about her life and work, her intellectual and artistic influences, and her own subsequent forays into acting and direction. Sen has made 17 films and is the only woman to have ever won the National Award for Best Director, twice for her debut 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) and Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002). In 2021 she received the prestigious Kim Jiseok Award at the 26th Busan International Film Festival for her film “The Rapist”.
The structure of the film is such that the director Suman Ghosh, himself a Busan veteran with 5 of his films having been screened in the festival, takes Aparna Sen on a walk down memory lane to visit the locations where she had shot some of her iconic films. She reminisces about the days of her shoot and in the process the documentary delves into her films and the impact it created in the history of Indian cinema.
The film also draws some of Sen's most influential colleagues and collaborators into conversation about her life and work to situate her and her work in a historical context.
The film also pays tribute to a witness of Indian cinema in a time of exceptional ferment who still champions religious and other ethnic minorities, champions pluralism, and diversity.
Suman Ghosh is a National Award winning Indian filmmaker. He has made 12 feature films and two documentary films. His films have been to several prestigious film festivals all over the world, including Busan, Rotterdam, Shanghai, Karlovy Vary and others. He has worked with several iconic actors such as Soumitra Chatterjee, Mithun Chakraborty, Aparna Sen, Nandita Das, Konkona Sensharma and others in his films. His latest feature ‘The Ancient’ stars legendary Indian actress Sharmila Tagore in the lead role. It is releasing all over India on the 11th of April. He divides his time between Miami and Kolkata.
The New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) is the oldest, most prestigious film festival screening premieres of feature, documentary and
short films made from, of, and about the Indian subcontinent in the Independent, arthouse, alternate and diaspora genres.
