Actress Nandita Das directs a film on Gujarat riots

Nandita Das, the popular actress and human rights advocate, showed “Firaaq,” her first film as director, at the Toronto Film Festival. It is set during the aftermath of the Gujarat riots in 2002. Joan Dupont in theInternational Herald Tribune:


Nandita Das
Das, now 38, is a ravishing, very serious and very funny woman. She has been honored as a political rights activist and has served on the Cannes jury. Her debut as director made a splash at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado last month, where Salman Rushdie introduced the film. “Firaaq,” for all the anger and anguish it portrays, is a surprisingly fresh film, composed around a cluster of stories.

An Urdu word that means both separation and quest, “Firaaq” is set during the aftermath of the Gujarat Province riots in 2002, when Hindus and Muslims clashed: women were raped, and families slaughtered in a stunning replay of the partition. The film was made in Urdu, Gujarati and English. The director brings intensity to her characters’ plight, with sharp instinct for rooting out their hidden fears.