Nandita Das Biography

Nandita Das, born 7 November 1969, is an award-winning Indian independent film actress and filmmaker.



This actress revives our memories of the era of a young Smita Patil and Shabana Azmi. Her performances are as realistic as it can get.
Nandita Das started her acting career with a theatre group called Jannatya Manch. She taught at the Rishi Valley School.

She is best known for her performances in Deepa Mehta Filmsn Fire(1996), Earth (1998) alongside Aamir Khan, Bawander(2000) (directed by Jagmohan Mundhra) and Amaar Bhuvan (directed by Mrinal Sen).As a director, she is known for her directorial debut Firaaq (2008), which has won a number of national and international awards.

Das has played storyteller/narrator in the audiobook series for kids
“Under the Banyan” by Karadi Tales. She has also been the narrator in
the audiobook of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography by Charkha Audiobooks
“The Story of My Experiments with Truth”. She has also lent her voice
for the children’s series, The Wonder Pets as the Bengal Tiger.

Nandita ventured into direction recently. She has completed filming her directorial debut, Firaaq. Firaaq, a work of fiction, based on a thousand true stories and was set in Gujarat carnage in 2002.

It is an ensemble film that interweaves multiple stories over a 24 hour period, as the characters from different strata of society, grapple with the lingering effects of violence. The film traced the emotional journeys of ordinary people- some who were victims, some perpetrators and some who chose to watch silently. The film’s stellar cast includes Naseeruddin Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Paresh Rawal, Deepti Naval, Sanjay Suri, Tisca Chopra, Shahana Goswami and Nowaz.

The film won top honours at the Asian Festival of First Films 2008 in Singapore, where it won the awards for “Best Film”, “Screenplay / Script”, and “Foreign Correspondents Assn. Purple Orchid Award for Best Film”. The film has also won awards at other international film festivals, including the Special Prize award at the International Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece, the Special Jury Award at the
International Film Festival of Kerala, and the Best Editor award for the film’s editor Sreekar Prasad at the Dubai International Film Festival.

It was released in India on the 20th of March 2009. The film also won
an award at the Kara Film Festival.

An overwhelmed Nandita Das gladly narrates the experience of seeing Firaaq being so applauded around the world from Toronto, London, Pusan to Kolkata and Trivandrum. Audiences have been able to empathize with the journeys of the characters everywhere. It’s more so in India, where it’s set and hence people can identify with it more.

It’s been said that the film gave a voice to so much that remains silent and that it should be seen at least once. Though it’s always great to win awards at every competitive festival we entered the film in, but it’s actually the audience reaction that really matters to her as a director.