Aruna Raje puts women at the fore again

Firebrand, Priyanka Chopra-backed story of sexual assault survivor, marks National Award-winning filmmaker Aruna Raje's digital debut

Over a decade after her last feature, Tum: A Dangerous Obsession (2004), which starred Manisha Koirala, writer-director Aruna Raje is helming a film again. Her latest, Firebrand, produced by Priyanka Chopra and mother Madhu, dropped on Netflix over the weekend.

Raje, 73, is probably among the oldest filmmakers to debut on a digital platform. "Whether young or old, it is your passion for film-making that matters. But I do have over 50 years of experience," says the director, best remembered for films like the Vinod Khanna-Shabana Azmi-starrer Shaque (1976), Padmini Kolhapure's Gehrayee (1980), and Rihaee (1988), which starred Hema Malini, Naseeruddin Shah and Vinod Khanna.

Aruna Raje

Women-centric films feature in abundance on her resume, and Firebrand — about a divorce lawyer who is also a sexual assault survivor — is not different. The multilingual is set in Mumbai. "[That] is the way people talk in the metropolis. Marathi, English and Hindi [are frequently used]," she says. The film stars Usha Jadhav, Girish Kulkarni, Rajeshwari Sachdev and Sachin Khedekar.

About the title, Raje explains, "Firebrand may refer to a person who is passionate about a particular cause, but it also means a piece of burning wood. I have used it as a metaphor for the protagonist who is burning within due to the trauma she has faced, is also [a guiding] light, helping others as a divorce lawyer." Acknowledging that her films hinge on strong female characters, Raje doesn't underplay the importance of men in her movies. "Men and women need each other. Gender equality is important."

A digital screening would take the film to a wider audience, we're told of its preferred mode of release. "Divorce and sexual abuse happen everywhere." Raje, who graduated from FTII with a gold medal in 1969, is also the first trained woman technician in the industry. She began her career as an editor, and then turned to film-making. "Even after all these years, the process of making movies is the same, only the technology has changed," says Raje, who is now working on another web series and film.

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