
Kalpana Lajmi
Directing
Biography
Kalpana Lajmi is an important figure in Indian womens' liberationist filmmaking. After working on documentaries, she began to write some of her own scripts, which centered on independent heroines who were able to make their own life choices. All her films have women protagonists who defy stereotypes associated with marital life and sexuality, which, in theme, treatment and emotional charge, were far ahead of their times—with womens' liberationist and queer characters seen as outcasts in Indian society.
Known For
Host Farooq Shaikh interviews many well-known Bollywood faces as well as television celebrities and gives a peek into their private and professional lives.
Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai

A veterinarian, Dr. Rao, makes a visit to a village, where he intends to commence a co-operative society dairy for the betterment of the rural people. The film is set against the backdrop of the White Revolution of India (Operation Flood) which started in 1970. It was entirely crowdfunded by 500,000 farmers who donated Rs. 2 each.
Manthan

The denizens of a brothel deal with internal drama, as well as pressure from greedy land developers and an anti-sex work politician to leave town.
Mandi

The film follows the life of a successful film star, revealing her increasing alienation in a role both glamorized and patronized by society. After being forced into show business by her family, she spends her time between studios and disastrous love affairs, and feels more and more dissatisfied.
Bhumika

Shanichari is a beautiful girl born in lower cast and her life is full of sufferings because of lower cast, poor finances, lost parents, drunken husband, mischievous son. The title refers to a custom in some parts of Rajasthan—where aristocratic women were long kept secluded and veiled—of hiring professional women mourners on the death of a male relative, a rudaali (pronounced “roo-dah-lee”—literally, a female “weeper”) to publicly express the grief that family members, constrained by their high social status, were not permitted to display—or at times, perhaps did not feel. Underwritten by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and Doordarshan (Indian national television) and based on a short story by famed Bengali author Mahasweta Devi—whose tales often focus on the travails of low-caste women.
Rudaali

The saga of Mazhuddin Khan alias Immi, born in 1939 in Bombay, British India, as a eunuch, whose mother, Zeenat, in denial that she has sired him, refers to him as her younger brother. She attains fame, has an affair with Inder Kumar Bhalla, only to lose him years later to a younger actress, Chitra. Embittered, she sets out to seek vengeance, takes to gambling and alcohol, isolates and alienates herself from the film-world, and then must also deal with the news that Immi has become the 'father' of a male child, Murad. In the end, it is Immi that saves her from total self-destruction.
Darmiyaan: In Between

The Saikia family are an extremely wealthy family in Assam. The two sons of the family are Sanjay (Sayaji Shinde) and Sunil Saikia (Sanjay Suri). The latter being the kinder of the two whilst the former is very hot-tempered and has occasional mood swings. The parents decide to get him married to Durga (Raveena Tandon), a lower caste girl from a poor family, thinking she will be able to cope with Sanjay's temper. Sanjay initially refuses to marry Durga, but when his mother threatens to cut him off from the family will he relents. Thus, Durga marries Sanjay and looks forward to her new life. From day one, Durga is subjected to physical and mental harm by her husband.
Daman: A Victim of Marital Violence

A young woman, ignored by her husband, decides to spend time with the young man who had previously wooed her.
Ek Pal

Mithun Chakraborty plays a powerful and domineering priest who rules his temple and the surrounding village with an iron fist, all supposedly for the sake of religion. He becomes enamored with a prostitute (Sushmita Sen) from a local brothel and begins spending more and more time with her. But when the village postman (Anuj Sawhney) takes a liking to her as well, the priest is forced to deal with him and a growing village rebellion.
Chingaari

"KYON" follows the lives of five college friends, Vikram Desai, Tony Brar, Amar Mathur, Neha Bose and Shilpa Narang who have a great bonding with each other which is asexual. They belong to today's young generation of urban India. Following the lives and lifestyles of these youth of today, we see how dysfunctional they are spending huge amount of money in being self-indulgent whether it be alcohol, drugs, sex or various forms of entertainment.