For today's Female Filmmakers series, let's look at a South Asian sensation who has made some very tantalizing films. It is rare for an Indian director to have nudity in her films, but this one has broken boundaries and delivered on tittage. Let's take a look at the career and life of director Shonali Bose.
Shonali is an internationally respected director and writer, but before she stepped into India's bustling film industry she was a quiet girl in Kolkata. She later lived in Mumbai and New Delhi, but when she became an adult she moved to the United States.
Shonali began her career in 2005 when she wrote and directed her first film, Amu. Amu played at film festivals internationally and earned her a lot of attention.
She went on to write and produce the film Chittagong, but she did not direct it. She returned to directing with 2014's Margarita with a Straw which she also wrote and produced. This touching drama follows an Indian woman named Laila who has cerebral palsy played by Kalki Koechlin. She has spent her entire life in India, but she has an adventurous spirit and that adventurous spirit has inspired her to move to New York City for college at New York University. Hey, that's something to brag about!
When she is in NYC with her mother, she starts to explore her sexuality...with men AND women. She is far away from home and from her watchful father, so she starts getting closer to a guy named Jared in one of her classes.
She also gets close to an activist friend of Pakistani-Bangladeshi descent who also happens to be blind. Since the two of them have somewhat similar ethnic backgrounds and are both disabled in some way, they are able to relate to each other a lot. They fall in love and care for one another deeply. Sayani Gupta plays her lover who is quite easy on the eyes.
Drama ensues after our leading lady has sex with Jared and she tells her girlfriend about it. They break up, but when Laila's mother dies they reconcile and support each other once again. It's quite the drama, but it tells a beautiful story about young love between two women who have a hard time moving through the world.
They are both women who society often casts aside - especially in their South Asian societies - and they find strength, love, and attention in one another. They also find sex, so that's really cool to see from a Skin perspective (which is, of course, our perspective). We also see Kalki's breasts more than once and Sayani's suck sack from the side.
This film was quite successful on the film festival circuit, as was the nudity-free film that followed this called The Sky is Pink. After living in the US for a long time, she has recently returned to India to live in Mumbai again where she is working on a TV project for Paramount Pictures in India. I can't wait to see what she brings us next!
