Screen Writer's Association announces nominees for Best Gender Sensitive Script for inaugural awards

After announcing the nominations for Best Lyricists and Best Writing in web-series Screenwriter's Association (SWA) has announced the nominations for Best Gender Sensitive Script, a one-of-a-kind award.

The five nominees were selected from 167 Hindi language feature films released in 2019 that were submitted to the awards committee. The winners of the awards will be announced on 27 September.

Like the previous two instances, the virtual press conference was hosted by a filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan. This time, the jury was made up of filmmaker and editor Apurva Asrani, filmmakers Leena Yadav and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari. SWA president Robin Bhatt, general secretary Sunil Salgia, and screenwriter Ketaki Pandit were also part of the announcement.

Talking about the idea behind introducing this new and unique award category, Salgia said, “Stories have played an important role in building society, in bringing change in its thinking. Stories told with visuals have a lasting impact. We, the screenwriters, can shape the popular discourse for better or worse. The Best Gender Sensitive Script Award is SWA’s way of encouraging writers to tell insightful stories that nudge the world towards becoming a little more sensitive, a little more inclusive, and a lot more beautiful.” 

The nominees for Best Gender Sensitive Script were Saagar Gupta and Sridhar Rangayan for Evening Shadows (2019), Qasim Khallow for Gone Kesh (2019), Ivan Ayr and Kislay for Soni (2019), Faizal Akhtar, Sameer Siddiqi, and Shrabani Deodhar for The Sholay Girl (2019), and Faruk Kabir, Kushan Mustafa, and Siddharth Mishra for 377 Ab Normal (2019).

A prre-jury assessed all entries and shortlisted nine films. The final jury comprising of Asrani, Yadav, and Iyer Tiwari then evaluated these films and selected five nominees that challenge social and cultural stereotypes by exploring the identities of and relationships between men, women, and other gender identities.

Pandit, also a SWA spokesperson, said, “The Best Gender Sensitive Script Award is for the writer who does not shy away from telling stories that are truly ‘hatke’ from the mush of same old clichés. Diving deep, who unveils layer after layer of complex characters, until all notions of ‘us and them’ vanish; and we see, beyond the gender binaries, the spectacular drama of human vulnerability.”

Asrani felt that we should have more female storytellers and filmmakers to tell female stories more authentically. "Though we have some really good films made on female subjects and issues like, for example, Pink (2016) by male filmmakers. I hope that we have more female participation in the filmmaking department who can tell their stories more authentically."

He also called out the stereotypical representation of female characters in the films. "In most of our films, female characters have two extreme modes, they are either very sanskari, sati savitri-type or conniving and manipulating. I want to see more grey shade female characters, which we see very rarely in today's mainstream films. There are only a few examples like Soni (2019) which showed the complex female characters with grey shades."

Asrani also felt that the emergence of digital mediums has helped propelled filmmakers to make more films about LGBTQ or make films with LGBTQ characters.

On a parting note, Salgia wished that there comes a time when we don't highlight these films as female-oriented films, LGBTQ films and treat them as just any other human stories.