Guard Your Vision Like a Lamp

Aparna Sen and Her Cinema

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Aparna Sen is one of Bengal’s cultural icons and one of India’s foremost filmmakers. Her films hold up a mirror to their times, questioning and provoking audiences through compelling narratives, exceptional creative collaborations and meticulous craft.

In Guide Your Vision Like a Lamp, Sangeeta Datta offers a fascinating and intimate look at the director’s body of work and the ideas that have shaped it—from her focus on women’s narratives, psychological explorations, marginalized lives and female friendships to her probing questions about civic identity, patriarchy and prejudice. Conversations with Sen, as well as with the actors and technicians who have worked closely with her, offer further insights into her creative process, influences and inspirations, revealing facets of her work rarely seen before.

Datta also explores Sen’s journey as an actor on stage and screen, as the editor of a popular women’s magazine and as an activist, tracing the many lives and roles that have informed her extraordinary body of work.

Guide Your Vision Like a Lamp is a compelling portrait of an artist who has spent a lifetime looking closely at the world and asking us to do the same.