Nandana Sen
Dhaka Lit Fest 2017
Born
Nandana Dev Sen

Calcutta, India
CitizenshipAmerican
EducationHarvard University (BA, MA)
OccupationActor • activist • writer
Years active1997–2014
Organization(s)Ambassadorships in RAHI, Apne Aap Women Worldwide, Operation Smile, Save the Children India, UNICEF
Spouse
​
(m. 2013)​
PartnerMadhu Mantena (2002–2013)[1]
Children1
Parent(s)Amartya Sen
Nabaneeta Dev Sen
FamilySen family

Nandana Dev Sen is an Indian-born American[2] actress, screenwriter, children's author and child-rights activist.[3][4] Her first film role in Bollywood was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black (2005), starring Rani Mukherjee and Amitabh Bachchan, in which she played the role of Rani's 17-year-old younger sister.

After teaming up on a succession of projects with Indian directors including Ram Gopal Varma and Ketan Mehta, Sen signed for one of the principal roles in the jarring, terrorist-themed American drama The War Within (2005), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival[5] and, in the process,[6] began to cultivate a reputation for being drawn to offbeat, challenging and demanding roles, often with a social or political theme.[7]

Early life

Sen is the daughter of Nobel Laureate and Bharat Ratna economist Amartya Sen and Padma Shri awardee Nabanita Dev Sen. Nandana was born in New Delhi. Her elder sister Antara Dev Sen is a journalist. Nandana spent few years of her childhood in Delhi and London. After her parents separated, she and her sibling Antara moved to Kolkata with their mother Nabanita. After completing her schooling in Kolkata, She went to United States for further studies and completed her BA and Master's in English literature from Harvard University. Nandana Sen's first piece of writing was published when she was a child in the magazine Sandesh, selected by Satyajit Ray.[8] She spent her formative years in various cities across Europe, India and America.

Education

Nandana Sen studied literature at Harvard University, where she was awarded the Detur Prize in her first year for topping her class,[9] and thereafter won both the John Harvard Scholarship and the Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Award for Academic Achievement of the Highest Distinction. As a Junior, she was elected early into the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa. Subsequently, Sen studied Film Producing at the Peter Stark Producing Program at the USC Film School. She wrote and directed various short films, including her thesis film "Arranged Marriage" which was shown at multiple film festivals. As an actor, Nandana trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, New York, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London.

Professional life

Child rights

Along with acting in theatre and films internationally, Nandana also promotes the cause of child protection. Nandana, who is the Child Protection Ambassador for Save the Children India, was Smile Ambassador for the global children's NGO Operation Smile,[10] UNICEF India's National Celebrity for Child Protection and against Gender Based Violence,[11] and Cause Ambassador for RAHI (India's first organization to break the silence about child sexual abuse).[12][13] She is a Director for the Women's Refuge Commission, New York, serving also on its Program and Advocacy Committee. She collaborates with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) as a Child Rights Expert and Juror for Public Hearings. Nandana has been actively fighting to stop the crisis of child trafficking in India,[14][15] both with organizations such as the NCPCR and the Terre des hommes foundation[15][16] as well as addressing this topic in cinema.[7] She has been invited to speak on the cause of child protection in international conferences, including the Global Call to Action Summit for Child Survival and Development organized by USAID[14][17] and the International Comprehensive Cleft Care Conference of 2013.[18] Nandana Sen has combined her commitment to child rights with her acting work,[19] including originating the role of the traumatized protagonist of the play "30 Days in September" (Prithvi Theatre) and the film "Chuppee/ The Silence" on Child Abuse (UNIFEM).[14][20][21][22]

Cinema

Sen has starred in over 20 feature films from various countries and in various languages. Her portrayal of Sugandha in Rang Rasiya (2008) has been hailed by critics as "pitch-perfect,"[23] "superb,"[24] "divine, elegant, and enticing,"[25] "innocent and vulnerable,"[26] "fearless, uninhibited,"[27] "radiant in every frame",[28] "poignant, lustrous",[29] "stunning"[30] and "as refined as it is bold".[31] Sen's groundbreaking performance[27][32] as artist Ravi Varma's muse in this historical romance on the religious censorship of art subsequently won her the prestigious Kalakar Award for Best Actress in 2015: in her acceptance speech, Nandana went on record saying that the award honours "the greater cause of free speech and expression, now under enormous threat everywhere, as shown by the horrifying Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris. The need to protect our creative freedom – whether we are actors or journalists, film-makers or novelists – is more urgent now than ever."[33]

However, controversial acting choices,[19][32][34] Best Actress Awards,[35][36][37][38] and critical acclaim[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46] are not unique in Nandana Sen's unconventional career.[32] Sen experienced her first taste of cinema acting while still a student when director Goutam Ghose tapped her to play the lead in his dark and disturbing psychodrama The Doll (Gudia)[47] as one of the targets of a middle-age man's sexual obsession, which premiered at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. Sen was first seen on Indian screens as Rani Mukerji's younger sister in Sanjay Leela Bhasali's award-winning film Black. Sen's portrayal of a vulnerable teenager was not only critically appreciated[48][49][50][51] but also earned her a nomination for Breakthrough Performance of the Year (Stardust Awards, 2005).

In the anti-war film Tango Charlie, Sen played the female lead opposite Ajay Devgan starring Sanjay Dutt and Bobby Deol and with Anil Kapoor in My Wife's Murder. Nandana followed this by signing lead roles opposite Salman Khan in the bilingual Hollywood-Bollywood film Marigold,[52] and Vivek Oberoi in Prince, at the same time playing the protagonist in unconventional but acclaimed films such as Strangers[53] and The Forest.

The British television series Sharpe increased her notability. The episode Sharpe’s Peril featured Sen in a pivotal role.[54] In 2007, Sen signed on to portray a young rebellious woman fleeing from law authorities in director Shamim Sarif's lesbian-themed period drama The World Unseen. In 2010, Nandana starred in the Bengali super-hit Autograph,[55] for which she was awarded the TeleCine Award for Best Actress and the Reliance BIG Bangla Rising Star Award.

In theatre as in film, Sen has often played an artist's muse and has been critically appreciated each time, including the off-Broadway production "Modigliani",[56] the Bengali blockbuster "Autograph",[40] and her latest release, "Rang Rasiya".[57] A favorite cover-girl of leading magazines for women as well as men, such as Femina,[58] Savvy,[59] FHM,[60] Man's World[61] and Maxim,[62] Sen is known as much for her performances as for being comfortable with her sexuality and for speaking her mind:[32] "My body is as much a part of my humanity as my brain, my morals, and my heart, and I will never be ashamed of expressing it with the dignity and self-respect it deserves."[63]

Writing

Sen, whose professional choices have included a tenure as a literary editor at Houghton Mifflin Company, and as Princess Jasmine in Disneyland, is also a children's book author, a screenwriter,[64] a maker of short films,[65] and a published writer in multiple genres, including poetry,[66][67] narrative non-fiction,[68][69][70] and Op Eds.[71][72][73][74] She has authored six children's books, In My Heart (Penguin Random House India, 2019), The Monkey Who Wanted to Fly (Italian: La scimmietta che voleva volare, Fetrinelli Kids, 2018), Talky Tumble of Jumble Farm (Penguin Random House India, 2017), Not Yet! (Tulika Books, 2017), Mambi and the Forest Fire (Puffin, 2016), and Kangaroo Kisses (Otter-Barry Books, 2016). In addition, she has translated and edited a bilingual collection of Bengali poetry, Make Up Your Mind: 25 Poems About Choice (iUniverse, 2013).. In 2021, Acrobat (Archipelago Books), a collection of her mother's poems translated from the Bengali into English, was published. Sen also writes a fiction series for The Wire entitled Youthquake. Sen's first original screenplay to be made into a film was Forever, funded by Telefilm Canada.[75] She was commissioned by Divani Films to adapt R.K. Narayan’s novel Waiting For the Mahatma into a film script, and by Big Bang Company to write an original script focusing on a father-daughter relationship. Currently Nandana is completing the next book in her bestselling Mambi the Marvel series. She is also working on a multigenerational memoir entitled Mother Tongues, which grew from her essays "Shamelessly Female",.[8] , "Every Word a Lifelong Quest" (Lithub, 2021) and "Letter to Ma" (The Ink, 2021)

Personal life

Sen married John Makinson, Chairman of Penguin Random House, in June 2013.[76] The couple adopted a young Bengali girl in 2018. She was previously in a relationship with Indian film producer, Madhu Mantena, for over a decade.[77]

Filmography

YearFilmRoleLanguageNotes
1997The Doll / GudiaRosemary Braganza / UrvashiHindicredited as Nandana Dev Sen
1999BranchieEugeniaItalian
ForeverNadiaEnglishShort feature
2000Seducing MaaryaMaaryaEnglish
2002Bokshu – The MythRatiEnglishIndian English film[78][79]
2005The War WithinDuri ChoudhuryEnglish
My Wife's MurderReena WadhwaHindi
Tango CharlieShyamoliHindi
BlackSarah McNallyHindi
2007The World UnseenRehmatEnglish
StrangersPreetiEnglish / Hindi
MarigoldJaanviEnglish / Hindi
2008Sharpe's PerilMaharani PadminiEnglishBritish TV Movie
Rang RasiyaSugandhaHindi
2009Kaler RakhalBengali
Perfect MismatchNehaEnglish
2010AutographSrinanditaBengali
PrinceSerenaHindi
Jhootha Hi Sahi Suhana MalikHindi
2012The ForestRadhaEnglish / Hindi

References

  1. ↑ Gupta, Priya. "Nandana Sen: All my big decisions in life made sense to no one but me - Times of India". The Times of India.
  2. ↑ @nandanadevsen (21 June 2021). "Friends from #NewYork , a big day tomorrow at the #primaries ! Are you ready to #vote ? I voted early to avoid the lines, and it was super quick! #I♥️NY" (Tweet). Retrieved 26 February 2022 – via Twitter.
  3. ↑ "Nandana Dev Sen (2021)". JLF New York. 17 September 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  4. ↑ "Nandana Dev Sen". Brooklyn Book festival. Archived from the original on 26 January 2022. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
  5. ↑ Koehler, Robert (4 October 2005). "The War Within". Variety.
  6. ↑ "The War Within | Arts | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  7. 1 2 "Nandana the maneater". The Telegraph. Calcutta, India. 10 May 2012. Archived from the original on 13 May 2012.
  8. 1 2 Chopra, Anupama (28 January 2012). "Newswallah: Bollywood Edition". The New York Times.
  9. ↑ "Amartya Sen's daughter Nandana meticulously handles her passion from movies to non-profit work". The Times Of India. 22 May 2013.
  10. ↑ "Operation Smile India – News & Press – News". Archived from the original on 8 June 2015. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  11. ↑ "Celebrities Speak | UNICEF". www.unicef.org. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  12. ↑ "RAHI – Recovering and Healing from Incest". Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  13. ↑ "TWF India-"Child abuse a neglected crisis in India"". Archived from the original on 9 May 2012. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  14. 1 2 3 All, And (3 March 2013). "Gender sensitivity is a matter of life & death". The Telegraph. Calcutta, India. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013.
  15. 1 2 "'State ranks second in child trafficking'". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 20 February 2013.
  16. ↑ "Nandana Sen to fight against child trafficking – The Times of India". The Times Of India.
  17. ↑ "My work in child protection has been integral to my life: Nandana Sen – The Times of India". The Times Of India.
  18. ↑ "ICCCC 2013 Schedule" (PDF). Meetings n more. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 May 2023. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  19. 1 2 "Nandana Sen: "In Our Film Industry, 'Sexy' Implies A Total Absence Of Intellect!" : MagnaMags". www.magnamags.com. Archived from the original on 18 April 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  20. ↑ "Amartya Sen's daughter Nandana meticulously handles her passion from movies to non-profit work". timesofindia-economictimes. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  21. ↑ "My work in child protection has been integral to my life: Nandana Sen – Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  22. ↑ Kamath, Sudhish (25 February 2013). "Sen and sensibility". The Hindu. Chennai, India.
  23. ↑ "Rang Rasiya Movie Review – NDTV Movies". Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 16 June 2015.
  24. ↑ "Rang Rasiya review: A passionate but flawed ode". Sify. Archived from the original on 10 November 2014.
  25. ↑ Hindustan Times
  26. ↑ "Rang Rasiya review: A stunning visual treat : MagnaMags". www.magnamags.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  27. 1 2 "Review: Rang Rasiya is an important film". Rediff. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  28. ↑ Basu, Mohar (6 November 2014). "Rang Rasiya Review | Koimoi". www.koimoi.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  29. ↑ "Rang Rasiya Movie Review, Trailer, & Show timings at Times of India". The Times Of India.
  30. ↑ Hungama, Bollywood (2 June 2023). "Rang Rasiya / Colors of Passion Review – Bollywood Hungama". Bollywood Hungama. Archived from the original on 26 June 2014.
  31. ↑ "Movie Review: Rang Rasiya". Filmfare.
  32. 1 2 3 4 "IndiaGlitz – Nandana Sen: From controversy to kudos – Bollywood Movie News". www.indiaglitz.com. 22 January 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  33. ↑ "Paris attack: Nandana Sen makes Charlie Hebdo the star!". India.com. 27 January 2015. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  34. ↑ "Embracing nudity was a difficult decision to make: Nandana Sen – The Times of India". The Times Of India.
  35. ↑ "IndiaGlitz – Nandana Sen: From controversy to kudos – Bollywood Movie News". 22 January 2015.
  36. ↑ "Whats On App".
  37. ↑ Autograph (2010 film)
  38. ↑ "Sizzling Nandana Sen – itimes".
  39. ↑ "Modigliani". TheaterMania.com. 24 September 2002. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  40. 1 2 Weissberg, Jay (9 November 2010). "Autograph". Variety.
  41. ↑ "The Doll". 2 June 1997.
  42. ↑ Young, Deborah. "Autograph – Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter.
  43. ↑ "The War Within | Arts | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  44. ↑ "Komal Nahta's Blog". Komal Nahta's Blog. 8 November 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  45. ↑ "Rang Rasiya Movie Review: Randeep Hooda-Nandana Sens RANG RASIYA brings alive colours of life! | glamsham.com". www.glamsham.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  46. ↑ "Movie Review: Rang Rasiya an important story that needed to be told". indiatoday.intoday.in. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  47. ↑ Stratton, David (2 June 1997). "The Doll". Variety.
  48. ↑ Elley, Derek (15 February 2005). "Black". Variety.
  49. ↑ "Black movie review : glamsham.com". www.glamsham.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  50. ↑ sify.com
  51. ↑ "Movie Review : Black". Sify. Archived from the original on 30 July 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
  52. ↑ Debruge, Peter (16 August 2007). "Marigold". Variety.
  53. ↑ "Strangers movie review : glamsham.com". www.glamsham.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  54. ↑ "Sean Bean And Nandana Sen Cross Sharpe Swords In Orcha! – Planet Bollywood News". www.planetbollywood.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  55. ↑ "Autograph – Prosenjit Chatterjee, Nandana Sen – Bengali Movie (2010) – Shree Venkatesh Films Production – Cinergy Pictures". www.venkateshfilms.com. Archived from the original on 4 January 2013. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  56. ↑ "Modigliani". 24 September 2002.
  57. ↑ "Rang Rasiya Movie Review – NDTV Movies". NDTVMovies.com. Archived from the original on 15 January 2018. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  58. ↑ "Femina August 27, 2008 Nandana Sen Feroze Gujral Zaheer Khan Women's Magazine".
  59. ↑ "Nandana Sen: "In Our Film Industry, 'Sexy' Implies A Total Absence Of Intellect!" : MagnaMags". Archived from the original on 18 April 2015. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  60. ↑ "Nandana Sen FHM 2". 7 February 2010.
  61. ↑ "Nandana Sen Talks". Man's World India. 5 November 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  62. ↑ "Nandana-sen-on-the-cover-of-maxim". Nandana-sen-on-the-cover-of-maxim – Bollywood Hot Models. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  63. ↑ "Female bodies are often treated as objects in showbiz: Nandana Sen". mid-day. 23 May 2012. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  64. ↑ "She's no doll, nor a moll". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 29 May 2003. Archived from the original on 30 June 2003.
  65. ↑ http://wonderwoman.intoday.in/photo/10-things-you-would-love-to-know-about-nandana-sen/1/4304.html#photo10 short films
  66. ↑ "Most Read : Nandana Sen's Blog : nandana.sen – Times Of India Blog". Archived from the original on 5 August 2013.
  67. ↑ "nandanasen.net" (PDF). www.nandanasen.net. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  68. ↑ "Special News, Special Stories, Special Reports, Hot News Today, Blogs, Editorial – Midday". mid-day. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  69. ↑ "Nandana shocked at Durga ma in bikini top!". The Times of India. 26 September 2009. Archived from the original on 5 August 2013.
  70. ↑ "When another umbrella flew off exposing my first almost-kiss". The Times Of India.
  71. ↑ "Pass By On The Sidewalk, Without Looking". outlookindia.com/. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  72. ↑ "'Gender sensitivity is a matter of life and death all of us are accountable'". indianexpress.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  73. ↑ "Special News, Special Stories, Special Reports, Hot News Today, Blogs, Editorial – Midday". mid-day. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  74. ↑ "Special News, Special Stories, Special Reports, Hot News Today, Blogs, Editorial – Midday". mid-day. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  75. ↑ "Forever".
  76. ↑ "Celebrities News - Latest Celebrity News & Gossip, Couples and celebrities birthdays". Archived from the original on 25 July 2014. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
  77. ↑ "Nandana Sen: All my big decisions in life made sense to no one but me – Times of India". The Times of India. 3 November 2014.
  78. ↑ Young, Deborah (13 June 2006). "Bokshu, The Myth". Variety. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  79. ↑ Warrier, Shobha (22 May 2002). "Why can't an Indian make a film in English?". Rediff.com. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
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