Aparna Sen’s The Rapist to be premiered at Busan International Film Festival in A Window on Asian Cinema section

National award-winning Aparna Sen’s The Rapist, starring Konkona Sensharma, Arjun Rampal and Tanmay Dhanania, will have its world premiere at the 26th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in the A Window on Asian Cinema section.

Along with Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s international project No Land’s Man, directed by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, The Rapist has been nominated for the Kim Jiseok Award which will be announced at the closing ceremony. It is one of seven features in the A Window on Asian Cinema section.

Sensharma, Rampal and Dhanania play the film’s key protagonists, and the drama explores how their lives get intertwined after one horrific incident. The Rapist “looks beyond the obvious crime, to explore not only how it affects the survivors and perpetrators of the crime, but also delves into how one’s idealistic views are drastically altered when the truth hits uncomfortably close to home”.

Sen said in a statement, “Apart from trying to explore the reasons why our society turns out rapists in such numbers and looking into the inequalities in our social system that are responsible for giving rise to criminals, what drew me to this story was the psychology of the three protagonists. Stripping off the layers and the carefully built up facades to get at the person underneath was a fascinating process. Fascinating too was getting the two Indias to come face to face - the India that lives in urban slums with its age-old beliefs, and educated urbane India with its 'progressive' value systems.”

Sen and her daughter Konkona have previously collaborated on Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002), 15 Park Avenue (2006), and Iti Mrinalini (2011). Sensharma and Rampal play a couple, who are both professors and anti-death penalty activists in The Rapist.

The drama has been produced by Applause Entertainment in association with Quest Films. The former is venturing into film production for the first time.  

CEO Sameer Nair shared his excitement about collaborating with Sen for their first feature and stated, "The enthusiasm has only doubled up with a nomination for the Kim Jiseok Award, and a world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the most celebrated film festival in all of Asia. We’re happy to have partnered with Quest Films and are confident that Aparna’s unique brand of storytelling, especially of complex themes plaguing our society, will resonate with the world audience at large."

Suchhanda Chatterjee and Shubha Shetty of Quest Films said of the film’s prestigious world premiere, “Aparna Sen is someone we have always admired and that’s the reason why we feel so honoured to be producing a film directed by her. A soon as we heard this deeply impactful story written by her, we knew that we had to be part of this film. The Rapist is a reflection of the fault lines in society and it raises a few pertinent questions. We are grateful that Applause Entertainment trusted us and chose to come on board.”

This year’s edition of the festival will be held from 6-15 October. The Kannada film Pedro and the Bengali film Kalkokkho (House of Time) will also be premiering at the South Korean festival, in the New Currents section where the future of Asian cinema is showcased.