Aishwarya Rajesh is playing a middle-class Muslim woman in Farhana, set to release in theatres on May 12. Here, she talks about how her upcoming film celebrates Islam and Muslim community.
Aishwarya Rajesh has enthralled the audience with her critically acclaimed performances in films like Kaaka Muttai, Vada Chennai, Kanaa, and Ka Pae Ranasingam to name a few. The actress is now awaiting the release of her next film Farhana, a social thriller in which she plays a Muslim woman who has to work in a questionable call centre to provide financial security to her family.
Talking about the portrayal of the Muslim community in Farhana, Aishwarya Rajesh told DNA India in an exclusive conversation, "We have to celebrate our religions. We always think about the Muslim community in a different way, but we want to show that we have to celebrate them also. Down South here, we don't see a lot of women portraying Muslim characters. We think if it's a Muslim girl, we always associate it with something like terrorism or assume she would be a Kashmiri girl, but we have Muslims all over India. When I was in school and college, I had so many Muslim friends. There are so many Muslim people around us, so why are we do we always have a (negative) perception of them? The script of Farhana was really apt to celebrate Islam."
As Aishwarya spoke about how Farhana is an attempt to celebrate Islam, we asked her opinion on the recent controversial film The Kerala Story, which tells the story of three Hindu women in Kerala being forced to convert to Islam and join the terrorist organisation ISIS in Syria. The film has faced protests from the Kerala CM and opposition parties calling it a 'propaganda piece' against the Muslims and questioning its claims of 32,000 women from Kerala having undergone religious conversion in the last few years.
"Firstly, I haven't watched the film (The Kerala Story) so I can't really speak a lot about it. I have heard two versions, people who are for it and people who are against it. There are always two sides when you take sensitive topics like that. Through cinema, we convey so many things, and people get influenced. It shouldn't hurt anybody's religion or feelings. When you take sensitive content, you will have to be really careful, it's like you are walking on a knife", the actress said talking about the ongoing controversies surrounding The Kerala Story.
Directed by Nelson Venkatesan, Farhana will be released in cinemas in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi on May 12. Apart from Aishwarya Rajesh, the film also stars K. Selvaraghavan, Aishwarya Dutta, Jithan Ramesh, and Anumol Manoharan in key roles.
READ | Tovino Thomas slams The Kerala Story makers for 'giving misinformation': 'I want people to stop believing blindly'
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