Nandita Das

Das has acted in over 40 feature films with directors such as Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Benegal, Deepa Mehta, and Mani Ratnam. She began her acting career with the street theatre group Jana Natya Manch. She is best known for her performances in director Deepa Mehta films Fire (1996) and Earth (1998; alongside Aamir Khan), Bawander (directed by Jagmohan Mundhra), and Naalu Pennungal (directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan ). She has also acting in the movie Before the Rains, an Indian-British period drama film directed by Santosh Sivan.She has acted in films in ten different languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Marathi, Odia, and Kannada. The Tamil actor Sukanya provided Das' speaking voice in the Tamil classic Kannathil Muthamittal.

Das co-wrote, directed and acted in a play called Between the Lines (2014).[16] She has also acted in Khamosh! Adalat jaari hai (2017), a Cineplay production written by Vijay Tendulkar.[17]

In 2008, she directed her first film, Firaaq.[18] The film is a work of fiction "based on a thousand true stories" and is set a month after the 2002 Gujarat riots in India. 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. Das said that the film "gave a voice to so much that remains silent".[19] In 2018, Nandita directed Manto.[20] Das decided to make a film on Manto after reading a translation of his stories in 2012. She always had Nawazuddin Siddiqui in mind for the role and approached him for the same.[21] The film was premiered in Cannes film festival in 2018.[22] The film was also screened at Toronto International film festival.[23] In 2019 Das produced and directed a PSA music video, 'India's Got Colour'.[2]

Das narrated the children's audiobook series Under the Banyan,[24] and Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography by Charkha Audiobooks, The Story of My Experiments with Truth.[25] She was also a voice actor in the children's television series Wonder Pets, as the Bengal Tiger in the episode Save the Bengal Tiger (2007).[26]

She also sang the song Ramleela for the movie Aks and Jagya Sarsi for the movie Bawandar.

During the pandemic, in May 2020, she wrote, directed and acted in a short film called, Listen to Her. The 7min film, produced by Nandita das Initiatives, is about the increase in domestic violence and overburden of work that women are facing during the lockdown. It was supported by UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and South Asia Foundation and can be freely watched on Youtube

In 2013, Das became the face of the "Dark is Beautiful" campaign. Launched by Women of Worth in 2009, the campaign aims to draw attention to the effects of discrimination based on skin color in India. The campaign urges women and men to celebrate the beauty and diversity of all skin tones, using slogans such as "Stay UNfair, Stay Beautiful."[39] Das said in 2014: "Even in the [Indian film] industry when a makeup man or a cinematographer would come and say can you lighten your skin a little, especially when you are playing the middle class educated character."[40] In 2019, the Campaign was reinvented as India’s Got Colour. Along with Mahesh Mathai, Nandita Das has produced and co-directed a two-minute PSA for the campaign. The music video features several eminent artists from the Indian Film Industry.[41]

Das has been a featured speaker at various platforms in India and abroad, including at MIT (in 2007, after a screening of Fire), and at Tufts University (in 2014, on gender in society and cinema).[42][43]

In 2016, she gave a TEDx talk at TEDxWalledCity on "The Biggest Hypocrisy of Our Times: Our Attitude to Poverty."[44] In 2011, she spoke at TEDxNarimanPoint, on "Transformation in Education".[45]

In 2019. she gave a Tedx talk at TEDxShivNadarUniversity about A Mother's Journey With Anger