Accompanying the world premiere of Suman Ghosh’s documentary Parama – A Journey with Aparna Sen, as part of IFFR 2024, is Sen’s own film from which it takes its title: Parama (1985).
In her second feature, Sen acts in a secondary role, not the protagonist Parama, whose life is defined by her relationship with her family, never as an existence of her own. The joys of individuality are revealed to Parama by Rahul, a photographer, who starts taking pictures of her for a series on typical housewives. As they grow closer, the shots slowly become more intimate. When Rahul publishes these images without Parama’s consent, her family, starting with her husband, violently turns against her.
In the work of Aparna Sen, family is typically the source of problems and rarely the spring that offers comfort or answers to those in need. Never again did Sen paint as bleak a picture of the structural terror that, in many ways, is an ordinary Indian experience, as she did in Parama.
– Olaf Möller
Film details
- Country of production
- India
- Year
- 1985
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2024
- Length
- 131'
- Medium/Format
- Digital
