Marking 50 years in cinema, Shabana Azmi reflects on a career spanning parallel and mainstream films while leading Awarapan 2 and Batwara 1947 at 75. She criticises profit-first filmmaking, urges story-led budgets and better support for artistic cinema, and celebrates the diverse roles and social activism that continue to drive her, from global projects to grassroots work in Mijwan.
In 2024, Shabana Azmi celebrated 50 years of being in the movies, having made her debut with Shyam Benegal’s Ankur (1974). It was not a moment to rest on these lauded laurels — and retire.
“What I have realised through it all,” Azmi tells THR India, “is that I find the greatest fulfilment in acting — whether films or theatre. I would like to continue getting the opportunity to act. I enjoy the process.”
This year’s Independence Day has two films, backed by big production houses — Vishesh Films’ Awarapan 2 and Aamir Khan Productions’ Batwara 1947 — starring Azmi in a central role, no small feat for the 75-year-old actor.
Excerpts from a conversation:
How do you see the long arc of your 50-plus-year filmography, balancing Gautam Ghose with Manmohan Desai, Mrinal Sen with Karan Johar? How have your preoccupations changed?
They’ve changed as they should. One is the obvious factor of age. Second, the change in audience tastes, the budgets, the corporatisation, etc.. I think the main change seems to be that the reason for making a film has changed. The starting point is not a story you want to tell, but instead, a proposal that can help you make maximum money during the production, and then you try to fit in the pieces. It’s an imaginary line that filmmakers create claiming this is what the audience wants to watch and I feel therein lies the basic problem. So, the system relies almost totally on the stars you can rope into the project.
In my order of things, there should be a story and script, with a budget tailored to the scale. I don’t think films fail, but budgets do. We need small cinema halls with subsidised ticket rates for films that have won awards or are considered on the basis of their cinematic merit, not their box-office returns. The National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) should not produce films that lie in cans forever. A significant number of private producers will make films if they are guaranteed distribution and a theatrical release.
What drew you to these two particular roles in Awarapan 2 and Batwara 1947?
The diversity of the two characters. It’s sheer good luck. In fact, the last five years I’ve played very diverse characters, whether it is Admiral Margaret Parangosky in Halo (2022), which had Steven Spielberg as Executive Producer, or Shekhar Kapur’s What’s Love Got To Do With It (2022), in addition to a few miniseries in the UK. It has been quite a packed schedule.
There is something melodramatic and/or camp about these movies, from the trailers at least, which are largely things Hindi cinema has moved away from — its preference for realism, for example. Do you think melodrama is still a genre that can excite Hindi cinema?
Melodrama when used with discretion is one of the most engaging storytelling techniques. One of Hindi cinema’s strengths is its ability to absorb melodrama. But it has to be used sparingly and in the right measure. Also, the delineation of our characters need to move away from stereotypes into living, breathing characters.
Has the space for artistic but also deeply ideological and humanist films, like those of Shyam Benegal and the Parallel Cinema movement, disappeared?
I think that space is being occupied by indie films and OTT releases now.
Do you think your staunch ideological preoccupations — protesting against slum demolition in 1985; partaking in the Jantar Mantar protests, for example — has affected your career over the decades?
I inherited that from my parents by a process of osmosis. I don’t think I could have been any other way. People notice the dramatic stuff. But they know very little about the grassroots work I’m doing in Mijwan, Uttar Pradesh through education, sports, and livelihood skills. For example, child marriage has been eradicated in 40 villages in and around Mijwan due to our efforts. Our students are winning gold medals in sports at the national level. We are building a generation of confident young women who have broken through patriarchy. It was a dream my father had and to witness it first-hand is a deeply gratifying experience.