Bollywood movies are known for their glitz and glamour, their silly but entertaining story lines. So it should come as no surprise that the few female directors which have made it in the industry mostly shy away from delving deeply into so-called ‘women’s issues’:
The number of women filmmakers may have risen over the years but Bollywood is in no danger of being swamped by films on women’s issues.
With blockbusters “Main Hoon Naa” and “Om Shanti Om” under her belt, Farah Khan leads a select list of women who wield the directorial baton in India – a group that includes the likes of Reema Kagti, Tanuja Chandra and Revathy Menon.
While Indian-origin filmmakers Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair do the country proud abroad, celebrities such as Sushmita Sen, Zoya Akhtar and Neelima Azim are set to make their debut as directors in the coming months.
But apart from veterans Kalpani Lajmi and Aparna Sen, rarely have women filmmakers in India used the camera to focus on women’s issues.
Strange that the author of the above article does not seem to acknowledge Deepa Mehta’s dealing with ‘women’s issues’ in her films ‘Fire’ and ‘Water’–the first focuses on the relationship between two sister-in-laws, and the second on widows.
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