LADIES WITH THE LENS

A new generation of Indian women filmmakers is making a mark on the global festival circuit

- BY POOJA BIRAIA

On a rainy evening in 2014, Megha Ramaswamy sat nervously in the back row of a packed screening hall.

Her short film Newborns, an experimental work without dialogues, was moments from its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was a film she thought no one would see. “I didn’t even send my first film Bunny to festivals,” she says. “I didn’t think it was worth watching.”

Four years later, Reema Sengupta’s breakout short Counterfeit Kunkoo premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the US. “I don’t even remember sending it, to be honest,” she says with a laugh. “I think some WIP (work in progress) cut had gone there and we got selected based on that.... I remember reading the email five times because I couldn’t believe we were actually selected.”

For Ramaswamy and Sengupta, and for a generation of women rewriting the rules of what Indian cinema can be, this was immense.

A few years later, the trickle has become a stream. In 2023, The Elephant Whisperers, a gentle Tamil documentary directed by Kartiki Gonsalves and produced by Guneet Monga, won India its first Oscar for best documentary (short). Monga, long known in industry circles as a fierce champion of indie voices, broke into the mainstream like no Indian male filmmaker had in years.

Then came Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, which won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year. “I think there is a positive movement toward more female directors in India, and I am part of that,” she told the Cannes website.

She was right. Indian women are no longer outliers at Sundance or Berlinale; they’re contenders. Platforms such as MUBI and Netflix are acquiring their films and European universities are teaching them.