Aleya Sen is Co-founder and a director of Chrome Pictures based in Mumbai. This year at ADFEST, she judged the Film Craft and New Director categories.

 
Do you think your industry treats women differently than men?
 
When I started off, I used to get a lot of Huggies and cosmetics projects. It’s very easy for people to be typecast, like: “Because she’s a woman, she’ll know what ‘Huggies’ is about.”

 
Being typecast is something I didn’t want. I had to be selective and fight the gender-prejudiced projects that were being filtered to me. It was a conscious effort that I made. If I had to wait for a month or two, I waited. It was important that first year that I break the mold.

 
What is it like working in the film industry in India?
 
Today, Bollywood has reached another level. For example, I’m shooting my first feature film. I feel that the audience has changed dramatically in understanding and accepting content.

 
When I’m making a film, a script comes to me after a lot of scrutiny. There’s the initial client, the government censor, lots of people. By the time it comes to me, the dos and don’ts have already been settled.
 

How do you feel about cosmetic companies influencing women in advertising?
 
I feel that in the last four years, there is this breakthrough where the skin color doesn’t really matter. People are happy to celebrate differences and skin color isn’t met with the same prejudice that it once was. I really like it.

 
I think that it’s becoming a trend to be different. As, I creative person, I have never understood why an actor needs to be fair or have curly hair; why an actor needs to have black eyes instead of blue. Specifically in India, there is still a little more time needed for clients to understand this concept – that as a woman, cosmetics should enhance natural beauty, not make a woman expect to look like a star. In small towns, it does affect women and their confidence. This is one thing that still needs to be dealt with. 

 
- Mahmood Ali