No producer for Aparna Sen's dream project

Filmmaker Aparna Sen needs someone to produce her dream project. A decade has passed since Aparna Sen decided to make a comedy, but the ace filmmaker and winner of several National Awards is still struggling to convince a producer to fund her dream project. “Getting a national award and getting a producer are two different things. People think I am a good director but that doesn’t mean producers will put their money into my films. They think that they will not profit without big stars,” she says. 

Rated as one of India’s best cerebral film-makers, Sen has won the National Film Award twice for the best director. The 65-year-old Padma Shri who has made cinematic gems like 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), Mr And Mrs Iyer (2001) and 15 Park Avenue (2005) is trying hard to make a film on novelist Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay’s Bengali story Goyenar Baksho or Jewellery Box.

“I have been trying for the past few years to make the film, but it is very difficult to get funding for my type of films,” she says. Bollywood actor Govinda had reportedly agreed to play the lead as the hedonistic son of a zamindar’s family who turns a blind eye as the family crumbles to bankruptcy. Actress Soha Ali Khan was also approached to star in it. The story is about three generations of women and their changing attitudes viewed through a box of jewels.