Bengali girl directs Priyanka Chopra’s ‘Girl Rising’ film

KOLKATA: Ranaghat girl Indrani Pal Chaudhuri, who was in the news recently for having directed a short film with Lindsay Lohan, is now learnt to have helmed a film on girls’ empowerment that is produced by Priyanka Chopra and Freida Pinto.
The ‘Girl Rising’ campaign is aimed at raising awareness about girl education and features top Bollywood stars. In the US, it was directed by Richard Robbins, who has an Academy nomination for directing the documentary ‘Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience’.In 2013, he had directed the ‘Girl Rising’ project featuring actresses like Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Liam Neeson, Selena Gomez and Kerry Washington as narrators. The campaign showed the stories of nine girls around the world and the challenges they face.
The Indian film’s original content with Bollywood actresses was directed by Indrani.
Indrani, who has worked for 20 years on woman empowerment and co-founded the Shakti Empowerment Education Foundation SEE school, had developed a concern for the fragmented nature of NGOs and education programmes in India. “In spite of India’s growth, girls’ education levels and social improvement were falling far behind. When I was asked by Nanhi Kali, a girls’ education foundation, to direct a campaign on the millions of girls missing in Asia caused by a devaluing of women, I saw how critical the need to promote girls’ empowerment is,” she said.
Indrani had directed a campaign for ‘Keep A Child Alive’ in Africa and India that raised over a million dollars in under a week for charity. It won two Gold Lions at Cannes Festival of Creativity. ‘Girl Rising’ asked for her help to bring the project to India. “I proposed to direct a film and photograph stills with Bollywood stars,” she said. Hollywood ace stylist GK Reid came on board as creative director/executive producer. Both of them flew down to Mumbai to help recruit actresses. “I wrote director’s treatments, met the actresses and their teams. GK created fashions for them, and throughout, we worked closely with Priyanka Chopra and Freida Pinto and their teams,” she said.
Apart from photographing the stills, Indrani also directed the stars. “They were such inspiring eloquent women. My concept was to bring out each of their personalities and focus on their areas of interest. I encouraged them to share their own stories and perspectives on girls’ empowerment. I selected a red background illuminated in the centre, as symbolic of celebration of femininity in a powerful new light,” she explained.
Speaking about girls’ empowerment, Indrani said, “We need role models to mobilize men, women and especially, the girls themselves, to take concrete action to help girls get education and overcome gender-based social ills. At the same time, corporate and government leaders need to build an enabling environment for girls and financial investment in their education. Existing foundations need to work together to bridge the gaps. I was thrilled to find ‘Girl Rising’ incorporates these approaches.”
Indrani was arranging speakers on the power of film to create positive social change as special advisor and director of outreach at the UN World Film Forum when she was introduced to Girl Rising concept.