Nandita Das (born 7 November 1969) is an Indian actress and director. She has acted in over 40 feature films in ten different languages. Das appeared in the films ''

Fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...

'' (1996), ''

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

'' (1998), '' Bawandar'' (2000), '' Kannathil Muthamittal'' (2002), '' Azhagi'' (2002)'','' '' Kamli'' (2006), and '' Before The Rains'' (2007). Her directorial debut ''

Firaaq ''Firaaq'' (English: ''Separation'') is a 2008 Hindi political thriller film set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat, India and looks at the aftermath in its effects on the lives of everyday people. It claims to be based on "a thousand ...

'' (2008), premiered at the

Toronto Film Festival Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

and travelled to more than 50 festivals, winning more than 20 awards. Her second film as a director was ''Manto'' (2018). Based on the life of 20th Century Indo-Pakistani short story writer Sadat Hasan Manto, the film was screened at

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

in the "

Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films w ...

" section. In September 2019, Das produced a two-minute Public Service Announcement music vide
India's Got Colour
The music video is about the issue of colourism and urges the audience to celebrate India's diversity of skin colour. Her first book, 'Manto & I', chronicles her 6-year long journey of making the film. She wrote, directed, produced and acted in a short film called, Listen to Her, that sheds light on the increase in domestic violence and overburden of work that women have been facing during the lockdown. Das has served twice on the jury of the

. In 2005, she served on the main competition jury alongside

Fatih Akin Fatih Akin (Turkish: Fatih Akın, born 25 August 1973) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer of Turkish descent. He has won numerous awards for his films, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his film '' Head- ...

Javier Bardem Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (; born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. Known for his roles in blockbusters and foreign films, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in ...

Salma Hayek Salma Hayek Pinault ( , ; born Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez; September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American actress and film producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles in the telenovela ''Teresa'' (1989–1991) as well as the ...

, Benoît Jacquot,

Emir Kusturica Emir Kusturica ( sr-cyrl, Емир Кустурица; born 24 November 1954) is a Serbian film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and musician. He also has French citizenship.http://www.serbia.com/emir-kusturica-artist-builder-and-anti-glo ...

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

, Agnès Varda, and

John Woo John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (; born September 22, 1946) is a Hong Kong filmmaker, known as a highly-influential figure in the action film genre. He was a pioneer of heroic bloodshed films (a crime action film genre involving Chinese triads) and the gun ...

. In 2013, she served on the

Cinéfondation La ''Cinéfondation'' is a foundation under the aegis of the Cannes Film Festival, created to inspire and support the next generation of international filmmakers. It was created in 1998 by Gilles Jacob. Since then it has developed complementary ...

and short films jury with

Jane Campion Dame Elizabeth Jane Campion (born 30 April 1954) is a New Zealand filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the critically acclaimed films ''The Piano'' (1993) and '' The Power of the Dog'' (2021), for which she has received a tot ...

, Maji-da Abdi,

Nicoletta Braschi Nicoletta Braschi (; born 19 April 1960) is an Italian actress and producer, best known for her work with her husband, actor and director Roberto Benigni. Life and career Born in Cesena, Braschi studied in Rome, Rome's Academy of Dramatic Arts ...

, and

Semih Kaplanoğlu Semih Kaplanoğlu (born 4 April 1963) is a Turkish screenwriter, film director and producer. Life and career In 1984, Kaplanoğlu moved to Istanbul and worked for a couple of years as a copywriter for advertising companies like Güzel Sanatlar ...

. In 2011, she was made Chevalier de l' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Government, one of the nation's highest civilian awards. She was commended for her "contribution towards the development of Indo-French cooperation in the field of cinema." In 2009, France released a stamp featuring Das, from artist Titouan Lamazou's project "Women of the World." Das was the first Indian inducted into the International Hall of Fame of the

International Women's Forum The International Women's Forum (IWF), founded in 1974 as the Women's Forum of New York, is an invitation-only women's organization with some 7,000 members. Its mission is "to support the women leaders of today and tomorrow". The IWF hosts two con ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

. She was recognized in 2011 for "her sustained contributions to the arts and to the world as one of the most gripping cinema arts leaders of our time." Her fellow inductees were

Anna Fendi Anna Fendi (born in Rome, 23 March 1933) is an Italian fashion designer and entrepreneur; she created the Fendi brand along with her sisters Alda, Carla, Franca and Paola. She has two daughter: Silvia, Fendi's artistic director of accessories an ...

, Heidi Klum, and Madam Chen Zhili.

Early life and education

Das' father is the artist Jatin Das, and her mother is Varsha Das, a writer. She was born in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

and grew up mostly in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

in an Odia family, where she attended the

Sardar Patel Vidyalaya Sardar Patel Vidyalaya (SPV) is an education school located in Lodhi Estate, New Delhi, India. The school is named after a leader of the Indian independence movement, and independent India's first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Sardar ...

school. She received

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in Geography from

Miranda House Miranda House is a constituent college for women at the University of Delhi in India. Established in 1948, it is one of the top ranked colleges of the country and ranked as number 1 for consecutively six years (as of 2022). History Miranda ...

and

Master of Social Work The Master of Social Work (MSW) is a master's degree in the field of social work. It is a professional degree with specializations compared to Bachelor of Social Work (BSW). MSW promotes macro-, mezzo- and micro-aspects of professional social work ...

from the

Delhi School of Social Work Delhi School of Social Work is a school of social work in India and the first graduate school of social work in Asia to be recognized by a university. It is currently known as the Department of Social Work (DSW) of University of Delhi. Histo ...

, both affiliated with the

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...

. Das was a

Yale World Fellow Yale World Fellows is an international fellowship program at Yale University for rising global leaders. World Fellows come from around the world and from diverse disciplines. They are selected through a competitive application process. Each year ...

in 2014. She was one of 16 emerging global leaders chosen from nearly 4000 applicants. She has also taught at the

Rishi Valley School Rishi Valley School is an Indian boarding school, founded by the philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti. The school has a holistic approach to education in the spirit of Krishnamurti's pedagogical vision. Community service and extracurricular activitie ...

Career

Acting

Das has acted in over 40

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

s with directors such as

Mrinal Sen Mrinal Sen (''Beng.'' মৃণাল সেন; 14 May 1923 – 30 December 2018) was an Indian film director, and screenwriter known for his work primarily in Bengali, and few Hindi and Telugu language films. Regarded as one of the finest Ind ...

Adoor Gopalakrishnan Adoor Gopalakrishnan (born 3 July 1941) is an Indian film director, script writer, and producer and is regarded as one of the most notable and renowned filmmakers in India. With the release of his first feature film '' Swayamvaram'' (1972), Go ...

, Shyam Benegal, Deepa Mehta, and

Mani Ratnam Gopala Ratnam Subramaniam (born 2 June 1956), known professionally as Mani Ratnam, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema and few Hindi, Telugu and Kannada films. Ratnam has won six ...

. She began her acting career with the street theatre group

Jana Natya Manch Jana Natya Manch (People's Theatre Front; Janam for short) is a New Delhi-based amateur theatre company specialising in left-wing street theatre in Hindi. It was founded in 1973 by a group of Delhi's radical theatre amateurs who sought to take the ...

. She is best known for her performances in director Deepa Mehta films ''

'' (1996) and ''

'' (1998; alongside

Aamir Khan Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan (; born 14 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director and producer who works in Hindi films. Through his career spanning over 30 years, Khan has established himself as one of the most notable actors of Indian ci ...

), '' Bawander'' (directed by

Jagmohan Mundhra Jagmohan "Jag" Mundhra (29 October 1948 – 4 September 2011) was an Indian director, producer, and screenwriter, best known for his early career as an American exploitation film writer-director. Family and early life Mundhra was born at Nagpu ...

), and ''

Naalu Pennungal ''Naalu Pennungal'' (''Four Women'') is a 2007 Malayalam film produced and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan based on four short stories written by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. The film stars Padmapriya, Geethu Mohandas, Manju Pillai, and Nandi ...

'' (directed by

). She has also acted in the movie Before the Rains, an Indian-British period drama film directed by Santosh Sivan.She has acted in films in ten different languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Marathi, Odia, and Kannada. The Tamil actor Sukanya provided Das' speaking voice in the

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

classic '' Kannathil Muthamittal''. Das co-wrote, directed and acted in a play called ''Between the Lines'' (2014). She has also acted in
Khamosh! Adalat jaari hai
' (2017), a Cineplay production written by

Vijay Tendulkar Vijay Dhondopant Tendulkar (6 January 1928 – 19 May 2008) was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi. His Marathi plays established him as ...

Direction

In 2008, she directed her first film, ''

''. The film is a work of fiction "based on a thousand true stories" and is set a month after the

2002 Gujarat riots The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hin ...

in India. It is an ensemble film that interweaves multiple stories over a 24-hour period, as the characters from different strata of society, grapple with the lingering effects of violence. Das said that the film "gave a voice to so much that remains silent". In 2018, Nandita directed Manto. Das decided to make a film on Manto after reading a translation of his stories in 2012. She always had

Nawazuddin Siddiqui Nawazuddin Siddiqui (; born 19 May 1974) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is an alumnus of the National School of Drama. Siddiqui's feature film debut was alongside director Prashant Bhargava in ''Patang'' (2012). He ga ...

in mind for the role and approached him for the same. The film was premiered in

in 2018. The film was also screened at

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

. In 2019 Das produced and directed a PSA music video, 'India's Got Colour'.

Voice narration

Das narrated the children's

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sc ...

series ''Under the Banyan'', and

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

's autobiography by Charkha Audiobooks, ''The Story of My Experiments with Truth''. She was also a voice actor in the children's television series ''

Wonder Pets ''Wonder Pets!'' is an American educational animated children's television series created by Josh Selig for Nickelodeon. The series follows a trio of classroom pets—Linny the Guinea Pig, Turtle Tuck and Ming-Ming Duckling—who use teamwork t ...

'', as the Bengal Tiger in the episode Save the Bengal Tiger (2007). She also sang the son
Ramleela
for the movie Aks an
Jagya Sarsi
for the movie Bawandar.

Listen to Her

During the pandemic, in May 2020, she wrote, directed and acted in a short film called, Listen to Her. The 7 min film, produced by Nandita Das Initiatives, is about the increase in domestic violence and overburden of work that women are facing during the lock-down. It was supported by UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and South Asia Foundation.

Personal life

In 2002, Das married Saumya Sen. The couple began Leapfrog, a media organisation geared towards making socially conscious ad films. The couple divorced in 2007. After dating Subodh Maskara, a Mumbai industrialist, for a couple of months, she married him on 2 January 2010 and moved to Mumbai. Das and Maskara have a son named Vihaan. In January 2017, the couple announced that they have parted ways. Nandita Das is an atheist. She claims she has no religious affiliation -- "If I aligned with anything it would probably be

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

," she said.

Activism

Das has master's degree in Social Work from the

. She has worked for

children's rights Children's rights are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors.

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

awareness, to end violence against women. In 2009, Das was appointed Chairperson of the

Children's Film Society of India Children's Film Society India (CFSI) was a nodal organization of Government of India that produced children's films and various TV programs in various Indian languages. Established in 1955, CFSI functioned under the Ministry of Information and ...

. In 2012, she was the guest of honour at the iVolunteer Awards, held in Mumbai. Das also donated to the launch of the investigative journalism magazine ''

Tehelka ''Tehelka'' (Hindi: Sensation) is an Indian news magazine known for its investigative journalism and sting operations. According to the British newspaper ''The Independent'', the ''Tehelka'' was founded by Tarun Tejpal, Aniruddha Bahal and a ...

'', founded by

Tarun Tejpal Tarun Tejpal (born 15 March 1963) is an Indian journalist, publisher, novelist and former editor-in-chief of ''Tehelka'' magazine. In November 2013, he stepped down as editor for six months after a female colleague accused him of sexual assault. ...

India's Got Colour (Dark is Beautiful) campaign

In 2013, Das became the face of the "Dark is Beautiful" campaign. Launched by Women of Worth in 2009, the campaign aims to draw attention to the effects of discrimination based on skin color in India. The campaign urges women and men to celebrate the beauty and diversity of all skin tones, using slogans such as "Stay UNfair, Stay Beautiful." Das said in 2014: In the ndian filmindustry a makeup man or a cinematographer would come and say can you lighten your skin a little, especially when you are playing the middle class educated character. In 2019, the Campaign was reinvented a
India’s Got Colour
Along with Mahesh Mathai, Nandita Das has produced and co-directed a two-minute PSA for the campaign. The music video features several eminent artists from the Indian Film Industry.

Speaking engagements

Das has been a featured speaker at various platforms in India and abroad, including at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

(in 2007, after a screening of ''Fire''), and at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

(in 2014, on gender in society and cinema). In 2016, she gave a

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

talk at TEDxWalledCity on
The Biggest Hypocrisy of Our Times: Our Attitude to Poverty
" In 2011, she spoke at TEDxNarimanPoint, on
Transformation in Education
. In 2019. she gave a Tedx talk at TEDxShivNadarUniversity abou
A Mother's Journey With Anger

Accolades

In August 2018 Power Brands awarded Nandita Das the Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Puraskar for being a polymath with purpose, advocating issues of communal harmony, peace and social justice, especially for women, children and the marginalized "others" through various platforms, for her expressions of courage and compassion on celluloid and her steadfast faith in the power of cinema effecting social change for a better world. ;For Acting ;For Direction

Filmography

Actor

Director

Bibliography

* ''Manto and I.'' Aleph Book Company.

References

External links