Actors donning the cape of the director, fresh stories and new directors on board

‘‘Lights! Camera! Action!” yells the director, to get the actors going in front of the camera. But then, actors have often given in to the creative urge of getting behind the camera, too, to call the shots.

In Bollywood, over the decades, the trend of actors taking to direction has mostly been restricted to top stars or very accomplished names. From Aamir Khan, who directed the commercially successful “Taare Zameen Par”, to Nandita Das, whose arthouse gems as “Firaaq” and “Manto” have been critically applauded, actors who have taken to direction so far are ones who are instantly identifiable. Sunny Deol, Kangana Ranaut, Pooja Bhatt, Shreyas Talpade, Konkana Sen Sharma and Rajat Kapoor are some actors who have donned the director’s hat in recent decades.

There is a new breed emerging this year, of actors taking to direction. These are actors who are not necessarily mainstream. Rather, they have belonged to the fringes of commercial Bollywood before making a mark with the megaphone. Seema Pahwa, Tannishtha Chatterjee and Anshuman Jha are prominent names.

Actress Seema Pahwa, who is best remembered for her role of Badki in the serial “Hum Log” that ran in eighties’ Doordarshan, recently joined the list of new directors and directed the comedy film “Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi”, which is inspired by a real-life story. Seema drew from how certain relatives behaved when they came to mourn her father’s death and stayed at their place for 13 days.

The movie was screened at the recent Jio MAMI 21st Mumbai Film Festival with Star and garnered a standing ovation. (IANS)

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