A woman director faces many biases: 'Turning 30' filmmaker

Mumbai: Women work in almost every department of filmmaking in Bollywood these days but still have to face prejudices, says debutant director Alankrita Srivastav who is ready with Turning 30 - which she calls a slice of her own life.

"It's wonderful being a woman director, but it's true that there are many biases that a woman faces - they are sort of breaking away slowly, but they are there," Alankrita, who is 30 herself, told in an interview.

"I've been working in the industry for so long - from the time I was 22, I've been working on the sets। So I was quite comfortable being on the set and that was not an issue. But you do feel certain things.

"During post-production, I felt the studios were very biased. They won't take you seriously. You have to keep proving yourself. You have to doubly make sure that they take you seriously. At the end of the day, it's a patriarchal industry. I can't put my finger on one particular thing or specific instances, but there is something," she added.

Alankrita, who worked as an assistant director in films like GangaaJal and Raajneeti; as executive producer in Dil, Dosti, Etc and Khoya Khoya Chand; and as chief assistant director in Apaharan and Loknayak, will release her first directorial venture on 14th January.

Turning 30 talks about the life of a woman who turns 30, Alankrita teamed up with 31-year-old Gul Panag for the film. Produced by Prakash Jha, it also stars Purab Kohli in a pivotal role.

"The film is essentially about a girl who is heading towards her 30th birthday and how she begins to think how her life has been and how she rediscovers who she is."

"I felt that in popular mainstream cinema in India, the representation of women is really strange. Either they are really good or really bad. So I just thought that there is no space for regular women who are in their early 30s and are normal working women.

"What they go through, how they stay in the city all by themselves, sorting out day-to-day issues. I just felt that this character was something I had not seen in films. So I wrote it," she added.

Alankrita, who studied in Delhi, also revealed that a major part of the drama is based on her life.

"The script is majorly drawn from my own life in the sense that it's a story set in my kind of world. I feel a lot of urban, working, young people will identify with it because it's very real and a slice of real life," she said.

Even though the director is kicked about the fact that she has finally given shape to a film of her own, the journey was not without challenges.

"It was very challenging to make the film in the sense that it was a very small budget film and I had to pack in a lot of stuff in every day's shoot. I often felt like a one-woman army because I had to do a lot of things within the constraints of time and money," she said.

Vidya Balan: Crusader for justice to sexy siren

Mumbai: While Vidya Balan did go the de-glam way for her previous movie Ishqiya, it’s probably unfair to compare her looks in the former film and No One Killed Jessica. But one thing is for sure, Vidya manages to carry off a range of looks and emotions with the ease of a pro.

In No One Killed Jessica, inspired from the Jessica Lall murder case, Vidya’s role is based on Jessica’s sister, Sabrina Lall, who fought for her sister’s case. "There’s a real, vulnerable, raw quality to Sabrina," says Vidya, "She likes to get lost in the crowd. She’s very young when this incident happens in her life and it shows." Vidya adds that she took special care to look the character by wearing loose, ill-fitting shirts and even adding a slight hunch to depict the body-conscious young Sabrina.

Surprisingly, Vidya met the real Sabrina only after the filming of the movie। So why did it take her so long to meet Sabrina? Vidya winces, "I thought it would be really insensitive to just ask Sabrina what it felt or what she went through. Sabrina did meet (director) Raj Kumar and discussed a few things with him. Later, Raj Kumar and I sat down and created the character of Jessica. So any resemblance between reel and real life Sabrina is just coincidence."

About her earliest memories of the Jessica Lall case, Vidya recollects, "I was in college when I heard about the case. There were signature campaigns to show our support and even I signed up for them. When the verdict did come out finally (a few years ago), it wasn’t relief that I felt, but I was just happy that justice had been served. It was the way the case brought all of us – the media and the public – together that gave me hope."

You won’t be seeing Vidya in her coy avatar too soon. Next on her radar is Dirty Picture (working title), a film inspired by the life of south India’s sexy siren, Silk Smitha। Vidya Balan’s character is inspired by the late sex bomb who committed suicide. And she has also done a special dance number for Urumi, a Malayalam film directed by Santosh Sivan, and co-starring Genelia D’Souza.

"I was actually surprised when Sivan came to me with this song. I had just recovered from a shoulder injury and was getting back to exercising. That’s when he told me that he didn’t want me to lose weight! He said that they don’t like skinny girls in Malayalam films. And to top it, I was dancing in front of Prabhu Devaa. I was so conscious that I asked him to close his eyes because I didn’t want him to see me dance!"

Silk Smitha or Sabrina Lal, Vidya sure is giving us a hell lot to look forward to!