During a two day retrospective event organised by the Bengal Heritage Foundation in collaboration with Big Bazaar Films, honouring veteran actor and director Aparna Sen, her new project titled ‘Her Indian Summer’ was announced.
The film will be developed as an Indo-U.K. co-production and is a mixed-race love story set against the backdrop of the 1947 partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. ‘Her Indian Summer’ will be produced by Kolkata-based Indian producer-director Aritra Sen and Los Angeles-based British writer-director Alex Harvey’s Big Bazaar Films.
In addition to ‘Her Indian Summer’, Aparna Sen is also working on ‘Forest of Humans’ with Big Bazaar Films. It’s a documentary about Satyajit Ray and Kolkata, featuring Sen and directed by Harvey.
Honoured with Padma Shri and a nine time National Film Award winner, Aparna Sen made her film debut the age of 16 when she played the role of Mrinmoyee in the Samapti portion of the 1961 film ‘Teen Kanya’ (Three Daughters) directed by legend filmmaker and Academy Award winner Satyajit Ray. She later appeared in four other films of Ray including ‘Jana Aranya’ and ‘Pikoo’.
Sen has worked with many other great filmmakers like Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha and Rituparno Ghosh. Her acting credits also include films like ‘Basanta Bilap’, ‘Memsahab’, ‘Iman Dharam’, ‘Ek din Achanak’, ‘Gaath’, ‘Antaheen’, ‘The Guru’ and ‘Bombay Talkies’ among many others.
Sen is also an acclaimed director who made her directorial debut with ‘36 Chowringhee Lane’ for which she also won the National Film Award for Best Director. She later directed films like ‘Paroma’, ‘Sati’, ‘Yugant’, ‘Paromitar Ek Din’, ‘Mr. And Mrs. Iyer’, ‘15 Park Avenue’, ‘The Japanese Wife’, ‘Iti Mrinalini’, ‘Goynar Baksho’ and most recently highly acclaimed ‘The Rapist’.