WHEN WOMEN ASPIRE FOR A BETTER FUTURE

Over the past few years, Indian movies have consistently made efforts to bring forward inspiring stories of women from from all walk of life. Laadli applauds this welcome effort by Cinema and it gives us great pleasure to announce that the South Asia Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity 2015-16, Feature Film category, goes to:

NIL BATTEY SANNATA & PARCHED

PARCHED

Directed by 

Leena Yadav

Writing Credits 

Supratik Sen
Leena Yadav

Cast   

Tannishtha Chatterjee, Radhika Apte, Suvreen Chawla, Lehar Khan

In the parched lands of a desert the three protagonists long for meaningful relationships with the men in their lives, who fill their lives with only violence of the most heinous kind. The perverted and skewed perceptions of masculinity, the fragility of male egos and the violence  perpetrated by men is starkly contrasted with the warm friendship and bonding between the women which makes them acknowledge and explore their own desires and sexuality, ultimately exercising their agency and choice to chart their own path. The women of Parched rescue each other, triumph over their insecurities and unleash their inner strength.

NIL BATTEY SANNATA

​Directed by 

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari

Writing Credits (in alphabetical order)  

Nitesh Tiwari, Ashwini Iyer Tiwari, Neeraj Singh, Pranjal Chowdhary

Cast   

Swara Bhaskar, Ratna Pathak, Riya Shukla

Nil Battey Sannaṭa, sensitively tells the story of the conflict between a single working mother from lower economic strata and her adolescent and defiant daughter. It brings out the conflict between the despair of the daughter who sees no value in education and no hope for her future except to be a maid like her mother and the aspiration of the mother who sees hope for her daughter’s upward mobility in education. It is an inspiring story of a mother teaching her daughter to dream, aspire and achieve. This film tells the story of aspirations of a working class single mother with sensitivity, simplicity and humor that resonates with the audience.

Both rousing and powerful films, Nil Battey Sannata and Parched make a statement on sisterhood between women of all ages and social strata, united in their hope of a better future. 

We congratulate the winners and hope to see more and more of such gender sensitive movies in the coming years!



Written by: Dr. A L Sharada