At the recent My Story event, celebs like Divya Dutta, Naomi Dutta and Madhur Bhandarkar came forth for a panel discussion to talk about women in film and the evolving nature of the main characters and protagonists in cinematic narratives.
Artists and authors came together to celebrate Women in Cinema and Literature ahead of Women's Day at the event My Story. The panel focused on the changing face of the women in cinema and them being protagonists now and how their characters are used in cinematic narratives. It also spread over to the shift in perspectives and portrayal of women with the coming of streaming platforms.
Divya Dutta stated about the empowerment of women on and off screen and the diversity of opportunities available to women today. She said, “Not so long ago, in Indian cinema, the relevance of a female character was defined vis a vis her relationship to the leading man. She could either be his mother, sister or love interest. But now, thanks to OTT and also more evolved storytellers, roles are being written for women. That’s a great change."
Naomi Datta talked about her journey of taking the risk of writing something like ‘The Fabulous Lives Of Bollywood Wives’ and how our audience has supported a different kind of female lead.
The panel also featured leading filmmaker, Madhur Bhandarkar who talked about how despite the evolution of storytelling, the largely male dominated commerce continues to dictate the scale of women oriented narratives in Hindi cinema. He said, "Women's trained trick cinema, books, and how it is essential, is very important to encourage women's trained trick cinema in our society, in the public domain. And I really enjoyed the whole conversation. I had a prestige of making some of the remarkable films in Indian cinema, which are woman centric. And I think such conversation should take more place. So, it definitely gives a great perspective to make more women centric cinema."