This filmmaker is the only woman to win National Film Award for Best Direction, it's not Zoya Akhtar or Meghna Gulzar

Winning a National Film Award is the highest achievement that a filmmaker can achieve in Indian cinema. Since 1967, National Award for Best Direction has been presented 53 times to 34 acclaimed directors. However, you would be astonished to know that there has been only one woman filmmaker to have won the coveted honour. It is none other than actress, director, and screenwriter Aparna Sen.

Born in Calcutta in 1945 to veteran critic and filmmaker Chidananda Dasgupta and National Award-winning costume designer Supriya Dasgupta, Aparna made her acting debut at the age of 16 in Satyajit Ray's Teen Kanya and established herself as one of the most prominent actors in the Bengali cinema. Since then, she has appeared in multiple Hindi and Bengali films such as Akash Kusum, Immaan Dharam, Ek Din Achanak, Antahaan, and Chotushkone.

Aparna Sen has won the prestigious award twice - for her directorial debut 36 Chowringhee Lane (1981) starring Jennifer Kendal, Shashi Kapoor's wife, in the leading role, and for Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002) starring Aparna's own daughter Konkona Sen Sharma and Rahul Bose as the main protagonists. The filmmaker has also been awarded the National Film Award for Best Screenplay for the 2002 English film.

As a director, Aparna has directed films in Bengali, Hindi, and English languages. From 36 Chowringhee Lane and Paromitar Ek Din to Mr. and Mrs. Iyer and 15 Park Avenue, her movies have been awarded a total of nine National Film Awards. Apart from her three individual honours listed above, Sen's directorial films have won Best Feature Film in Bengali thrice, Best Feature Film in English twice, and Best Feature Film on National Integration once.

In 1987, the Government of India awarded Aparna Sen with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour in the nation recognising her contribution to Indian cinema. Since then, she has been awarded several lifetime achievement awards and has served as a jury member at various international film festivals.

Her most recent film The Rapist starring Konkona Sen Sharma and Arjun Rampal was premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2021. Sharing why she chose to make The Rapist in Hindi, Aparna said in a statement to Times of India, "The Rapist is my first full-length Hindi feature film. The language has to happen organically. My first film 36 Chowringhee Lane had to be in English because the protagonist was an Anglo-Indian. Or Mr. & Mrs. Iyer, one protagonist speaks Tamil the other Bengali. So which language should they communicate in? English, right?". The film is planned to release this year in India.

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