MUMBAI: Actor-director Nandita Das today said the aim of mainstream films is to entertain people, but, for her, engaging the audience is more important.
The 48-year-old filmmaker, however, said she is not party to the idea of using the medium of cinema to “preach” and bore the masses.
“The main aim of the mainstream Bollywood films is entertainment and it is good, but for me it is about engaging the audience and not just entertaining. It is not necessary that I will get entertained with what other people might find entertaining. I like a story that is engaging irrespective of the genre.
“People get involved with the story… We laugh, cry as we have taken to it to the make-believe world. Cinema is a part of arts. There is magic in it and it happens sometimes and it doesn’t happen sometimes. I would never listen to anything that is preachy and boring,” she said on the sidelines of FICCI Frames here.
Nandita, who has earlier worked with Nawazuddin Siddiqui in “Firaaq”, has teamed up with him for her second directorial venture “Manto”.
The film is a biopic on the celebrated Urdu short story writer Sa’adat Hasan Manto.
“When I was writing this film, I was thinking only about him. There is something in Nawaz’s eyes that I felt he was apt for this role. Every actor brings something of his or her own to the table while portraying a character and it would have been fantastic in different ways. I think Nawaz had that Manto-ness thing in him. (AGENCIES)
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