Present generation of filmmakers less inhibited: Shyam Benegal

Jan 11, 2013 IANS

Kolkata, Jan 11 (IANS) National-award winning filmmaker Shyam Benegal feels that the younger generation of movie directors are less inhibited than his contemporaries.

"The young people are making different films today with less inhibitions than my generation did," said Benegal at the fourth Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival here.

"We had certain ideological considerations but today's young filmmakers like Anurag Kashyap, Onir and Habib Faisal and other wonderful filmmakers from Mumbai -- who I call the post-modern generation -- don't have those ideological considerations," he added.

Talking about making women-centred films, he suggested that in order to depict women as equal to men, they should be shown as "someone who challenges men" and not be portrayed as victims.

"There are two ways of doing it. Somebody who challenges men, that's one way of doing it. The other way is not to treat women as a victim because the moment you do that you are challenging the patriarchal system," Benegal said.

"The fact that she doesn't see herself as a victim even, she grows out of her victim-hood. When she grows out of her victimhood, she can then aim to be equal," he explained.

Benegal felt that films nowadays lack the sense of right and wrong.

"Films can be either descriptive or prescriptive. Fact is most of the audience would always prefer to see prescriptive films," said the director, who has films like "Arohan", "Zubeidaa", "Welcome to Sajjanpur" and "Well Done Abba" to his credit.

"If you want to do a prescriptive film you need to have certain kind of basic sense of right and wrong. A certain kind of morality built into it. Now there are films that do not have that. They are quite immoral," he pointed out.