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Films
Women Behind
The Scenes
Deepa Gahlot raises a toast to the are not always blockbusters. But where
women who broke through the it comes to creativity, women are making
glass ceiling of Bollywood their mark on the world of cinema – the
latest being Payal Kapadia, whose film All
A female star remarked at a seminar, We Imagine As Light has been winning
that when she started acting a few years international awards since its triumph at
ago, there were hardly any women Cannes.
on the sets, besides the actresses; It is never easy for women to enter a male-
now the sets are overrun by women – dominated industry, and even tougher to
assistants, cinematographers, stylists, get to compete on a level playing field. But
choreographers, set designers. Off the those who dared... won:
sets, there is an increasing number of A look at women who broke through the
script writers, editors, costume designers, glass ceiling of Bollywood:
production designers, music composers, Saraswatibai Phalke:
computer graphics creators. There is no The wife of Dadasaheb
known action director --though there are Phalke, known as
female stunt artistes-- but the number of the father of Indian
directors and producers is steadily going cinema—his film Raja
up, though not as fast as it should. In an Harishchandra being the
ecosystem where box-office returns are the first Indian feature film,
only criterion to measure worth, women she was the unsung financier (she sold her
directors lag behind because their films jewellery to fund his dream) and editor,
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #69 | MARCH 2025 31
