| APARNA SEN, one of India’s foremost women directors, brings to her films an unusual sensibility. It is a sensibility that has been shaped and informed by a rare mix of empathy,intellect, socio-political awareness, and a finely honed cinematic craftsmanship. Although she is an actress of considerable talent, working with some of the finest directors, itis her work as a filmmaker that has brought her widespread recognition. |
Her films address gender and social roles, superstition and prejudice, political and religious conflict, and issues common to the human condition—fear, loneliness, power, courage and endurance. She has explored the crosscurrents of these and other issues in the lives of her cinematic characters with a firm dispassionate gaze, leavened by gentle compassion. Like all gifted story-tellers, Sen’s films are at once, specific in time and place and universal in their underlying humanity.
As the daughter of writer, critic and filmmaker Chidananda Das Gupta, Aparna was born into Bengali literary and film culture. One of her father’s friends happened to be Satyajit Ray, who cast the 16 year-old in his Teen Kanya in 1961. After finishing college, Sen resumed acting fulltime in 1965, a career that included three more films with Satyajit Ray (Pikoo, cameos in Aranyer Din Ratri, Seemabaddha) , four with Merchant Ivory productions (The Guru, Bombay Talkie, Hullabaloo Over George and Bonnie’s Pitures), and the films of Mrinal Sen and Rituporno Ghosh, amongst others. She made a short-lived foray into Hindi films, now known as Bollywood, but it wasn’t a good fit.
Dissatisfied with her options, she penned a short story that became her debut film as writer-director, the English language 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981). Since then she has received widespread critical acclaim for films such as Paroma (1984), Sati (1989), Mr & Mrs Iyer (2002), and 15 Park Avenue (2005). She is currently making The Japanese Wife.
Aparna Sen has been married three times, to Sanjay Sen, to journalist Mukul Sharma (who played the photographer in Paroma), and presently to English professor Kalyan Ray. She has two daughters, Kamalini and Konkana. The latter, Konkana Sen Sharma, is an award winning actress who has just directed her first film. For more than two decades Aparna Sen was writer-editor of the Bengali fortnightly Sananda. She has served on countless juries of international film festivals and won countless prestigious awards, including the Padmashree, India’s highest honor bestowed by the President of India and the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award.
DC Meets Delhi is screening the following films: Teen Kanya, 1961 (Bengali), directed by Satyajit Ray and starring Aparna Sen; 36 Chowringhee Lane, 1981 (English), written and directed by Screenplay by Aparna Sen; Sati, 1989 (Bengali), written and directed by Aparna Sen, Mr & Mrs Iyer ; 2002 (English) written and directed by Aparna Sen; and Titli, 2002 (Bengali) directed by Rituparno Ghosh and starring Aparna Sen.
Dr. Punita Bhatt, Professor, University of the District of Columbia |
