36 CHOWRINGHEE LANE

Aparna Sen

India

- 1981

After the marriage of her niece, Rosemary, Anglo-Indian school-teacher Violet Stoneham lives a lonely life in her single room flat located at 36 Chowringhee Lane in Calcutta, with only a tom cat for company. She is thrilled when a former student, Nandita Roy, looks her up and also brings her boyfriend, Samaresh Moitra, to her flat. Samaresh is an author and likes the solitude of Violet’s flat, and would like to write his new novel there, to which Violet readily agrees to.

Aparna Sen

Indian actress, filmmaker, and screenwriter, born in Calcuta in 1945. Studied at Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata and B.A. English at Presidency College. She made her film debut at the age of 15, in Satyajit Ray’s ‘Three Daughters’ (1961). In 1965, she resumed her film career in Mrinal Sen’s ‘Akash Kusum’. Until the end of the 1970s, she worked steadily in the Bengali film industry. She made her debut as screenwriter and director with ‘36 Chowringhee Lane’ (1981), that won the Best Director award at the Indian National Film Awards. Other films directed by her include ‘Paroma’ (1984), ‘Sati’ (1989), ‘Yugant’ (1995), ‘Paromitar Ek Din’ (2000), ‘Mr. and Mrs. Iyer’ (2002), ‘Goynar Baksho’ (2013), among others. She has been a part of the Bengali film industry for close to fifty years, has won eight National Film Awards and the Padma Shriin 1986.