My Journey from Social Work to Cinema

Joined in conversation with:
Nikhil Anand (CASI Interim Director) & Aswin Punathambekar (Director, CARGC)

In partnership with Penn Cinema & Media Studies, Penn Social Policy & Practice, and the Penn Department of South Asia Studies

"While films don’t create revolutions, they help humanize issues, challenge biases and prejudices and inspire reflection and action," actor, filmmaker, and social advocate Nandita Das says. "They can spark new ideas, catalyze critical thinking, and most importantly, invoke empathy." Nandita’s journey from social work to cinema was not a conscious shift from one world to another, but an extension of the same impulse—to understand the world and connect with people, overcoming prejudice. After studying social work, she spent five years working with women and children in slums and with various community organizations. Those experiences exposed her anew to lives of struggle and resilience. As an actor, Nandita was drawn to stories with which she resonated and acted in films that provided a means to express and share her concern. She acted in 40 films in 10 different languages, starting with Fire (1996). Slowly, social work morphed into social advocacy. As her world expanded beyond films, her circle of influence widened. She began to write, give talks, and participate on panels and conferences. The films she wrote and directed—Firaaq (2008), Manto (2018), and Zwigato (2022)—attempt to examine fear and violence, hope and despair—to inspire reflection and action. Both social work and cinema, Nandita believes, are about living with human connections, communicating across differences, and making sense of our shared fragility. For her, they are not two separate paths, but an organic continuum seeking meaning, understanding, and hope.

Nandita Das has acted in more than 40 feature films in 10 different Indian languages. Her directorial debut, Firaaq (2008), premiered at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and garnered many accolades and critical appreciation, both in India and abroad. In 2011, she was conferred the "Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters" by the French Government. Her second directorial feature Manto (2018), based on the life and works of writer Saadat Hasan Manto, premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Her first book, Manto & I, chronicles her six-year-long journey of making the film. Zwigato (2022), her third and most recent directorial film, explores the struggles of a food delivery rider and his family. It premiered at TIFF and, after its theatrical release, is now streaming on Amazon Prime. In addition, Nandita has written, directed, and produced shorts such as Listen to Her, that shed light on important social issues. Nandita has a Masters in Social Work from Delhi University and is a strong advocate of human rights and social justice.

Nikhil Anand is CASI's Interim Director. He is an environmental anthropologist whose research focuses on cities, infrastructure, state power, and climate change. He addresses these questions by studying the political ecology of cities, read through the different lives of water. His award-winning first book, Hydraulic City: Water and the Infrastructures of Politics in Mumbai (Duke University Press 2017), examines the everyday ways in which cities and citizens are made through the everyday management of water infrastructure. His new book project, Urban Seas—based on field research with fishers, scientists, and planners as they work in the sea—decenters the grounds of urban planning by drawing attention to the ways in which climate-changed seas are remaking coastal cities today.

Aswin Punathambekar is a Professor of Communication at Penn's Annenberg School for Communication and Director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC). Previously he taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, and held a British Academy Global Professorship (2020-2024, affiliated with Loughborough University in the U.K.). Prof. Punathambekar studies media and cultural change in postcolonial and diasporic contexts, with a focus on media industries and institutions, formations of audiences and publics, and cultural identity and politics. He takes cultural and historical approaches to studying global media and communication with a particular focus on South Asia and the South Asian diaspora in the U.S. and the U.K.

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Host or Publisher Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania