Nandita Das to WION: A director once asked me to seduce him

Nandita Das, one of India's critically acclaimed actresses and filmmakers, was recently in the capital city, Delhi to be a speaker at an event called ILSS Emerging Women's Leadership Program. The India Leaders for the Social Sector (ILSS) have done research to understand the complexity of women’s leadership in the social sector.WION spoke to filmmaker Nandita Das who told us how this statistic is important and also shared her journey being a woman filmmaker.

Here are the excerpts from the conversation.

You told me you don't keep a TV at home, but you have heard that WION is the only news channel where people don’t scream. But I want to understand, how can a filmmaker not have a TV?

No, you are right, it is a bit of a contradiction, that as a filmmaker I don’t have a television at home. It's really in the last six years. The shrillness of television news first of all, and now we don't know what is fiction and what is non-fiction. In non-fiction, in news, we have music playing, we don't know where the source is from, also series, etc, I don't know I just feel there is a bombardment there is an overstimulation, and it sometimes offends your sensibilities, I'm sure there's good stuff happening as well, but then you sometimes slip and you can get consumed by it. The fact that I have a 12-year-old child, and I feel that children in most homes, sort of want television, and if adults are constantly watching and children end up watching that, I mean there is always that tussle. Anyway, gadgets have kind of oppressed us.

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I think as a filmmaker, I always tell young filmmakers because I did not start out wanting to be a filmmaker or even an actor for that matter, but I do feel that if you internalise life, if you are just observant of life in itself, you are kind of reflecting.

What inspired you most about this ILSS event that you just attended?

I think this report that ILSS is bringing out, even though it is about things that we know. But to know something theoretically, and for some actual statistics and research to back it, you know the fact that women in the workforce are decreasing, the fact that there is a great disparity between men and women we know that but how it is important today to know, because this narrative has been going on forever, but we are at a juncture that we are also making strides, things are changing, legally, physically, at the same time there is such a long way that we have to cover. So I think that it's at a very opportune moment that this report is coming I think it will just inspire all of us to do more of what we want to do and sometimes statistics is important, then you are backed with numbers and you are not just saying I feel this.

One thing you wish you could change about the Indian film industry?

I don't know about change but I definitely hope that and wish to have more women behind the camera. Of course, in front, you need female actors, and they are there, and you know a lot of times they are objectified as well. Because there are certain parameters of beauty that have been given to us by society, by the media. If there are more women, who are in positions of power, like even producers, or writers, who will write those parts, and create that world which is more sort of real, and more nuanced, or cinematographers, the gaze, the female gaze and how they will look at both men and women, so I just think that if there are more women behind the camera we will see a far more diverse set of stories.

What's the most bizarre demand you have got from producers or a studio?

Studios, well I mean there are all kinds, I remember there was a director who wanted sort of a sensual scene and he said 'okay come seduce me.' I was like 'excuse me'. And he was like 'yeah, I just want to see if you are sensual enough, can you seduce the camera.' And I was like 'Great, I don’t even want to be an actor, why am I here?' And I don’t even know whether it was a casting couch, maybe it was a genuine question, but I don’t know if a man would ever be asked that question. Of course, I keep getting asked to lighten my skin for films, especially if I am doing the middle class and upper middle class and educated character. If I am doing a lower class and, in a village, and in a slum, then my skin colour is fine. But the minute I have to play somebody who is more affluent or more educated, then they are always telling me to lighten my skin and even if I say no to it when I see the film sometimes, they have done it in the post-production. You know they have colour-corrected me, they think that they are doing me a favour by the way, by lightening my skin.

One thing you wish you knew when you started filmmaking?

There's a lot to learn you know. As a filmmaker, I only knew what the actor knew, that is to shoot, which is a vital part of the filmmaking process, but it is the smallest part. Because there's so much that goes into the preparation of it, so much in the post-production of it, so you know, I think I wish I had known that whole process. Sometimes I wish I had studied cinema you know, then I would know a little more and I wish I could watch more. That I have no complaints it's something that I have to do myself.