Film seeks to challenge stereotypes and tackle feudal mindsets still around…
BREAKING with Bollywood conventions, writer-director choose to centre his story around an 80-year-old matriarch.
But Mehrunisa (a common phrase meaning ‘the pretty one’) is no ordinary matriarch – she is a star of yesteryear and so when some hotshot producers come calling following the death of her husband – she sets her terms.
Played by the imitable and now late Farrukh Jaffar (‘Secret Superstar’, ‘Swades’), this is a film that sets out to ask questions about Bollywood, and a feudal culture that once dominated this region of India – known as Nawabism or translated as ‘lordism’ in the film, it is set of beliefs that put grand patriarchal figures at the top of a very stratified social structure, which often kept women and especially older women down and oppressed and subjugated, mostly. But as the film suggests they played a part in the 1857 uprising that has been obscured and relegated.
Mehrunisa (Jaffar) sets out to challenge all that with the help of her granddaughter Aliya (Ankita Dubey) – while her mother Yasmine (Tulika Banerjee) is also stuck in the past and contending with her divorce and resettlement in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), and returning to a grand, but crumbling estate house.
Touching on aspects of a grand Urdu Lukcknowi culture, it will screen this month at the Watch Aut Austrian Film Festival.
Writer-director Sandeep Kumar is based in Vienna and the film is an Austrian production but shot on location in India. The film had its world premiere at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI Goa) in 2021.
Listing
Mehrunisa – Watch Aut Austrian Film Festival March 13-16
Sandeep Kumar will present for this UK premiere and there is post screening Q&A
5.30pm Sunday, March 16 – Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
Festival https://www.acflondon.org/events/watchaut-2025-save-the-date/
Tickets https://www.ica.art/films/mehrunisa-q-a
Production credits
A Big Talent Media Production for https://www.asianculturevulture.com
Presenter/producer: Sailesh Ram
Editing: Harry Clegg
