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After shining in Bollywood as a talented actress, Konkona Sen Sharma has proved herself as a director as well.
Konkona Sen Sharma has redefined the portrayal of women in the Hindi film industry. (Image: Konkona Sensharma/Instagram)
Bollywood actress and director Konkona Sen Sharma is celebrating her 45th birthday today, on December 3. She has featured in several Hindi and Bengali movies, with most of them being critically acclaimed, instead of huge commercial hits.
Every time she delivers on the silver screen, she does it to highlight important gender-centric issues or social issues. From portraying female desires in Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016) and Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (2019) to the need to mature up and take responsibilities in Life in a… Metro (2007) and Wake Up Sid (2009), she has gained a loyal fanbase.
Let’s take a look at her early career, some of her award-winning movies and her upcoming projects.
Konkona Sen Sharma: Early Career
Coming from an acting background, she had the skills in her blood. Her mother, Aparna Sen, is a well-acclaimed Indian movie actress and filmmaker and her maternal grandfather, Chidananda Dasgupta, was a film critic and scholar.
She started her acting career as a child artist in the Bengali film Indira (1983) and debuted as an adult in the Bengali thriller Ek Je Aachhe Kanya (2000). She stepped into Bollywood in 2005, making a dream debut with Page 3, which earned her three National Film Awards.
She made her directorial debut with the 2016 English-language drama A Death in the Gunj which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in the same year.
ALSO READ: Konkona Sen Sharma To Star Opposite Spanish Actor Carlos Bardem In An International Project
Konkona Sen Sharma: 5 Best Films To Watch
Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002)
Konkona gained prominence for her lead role in the English-language film Mr. and Mrs. Iyer (2002), directed by her mother. She played a traditional Tamil Brahmin woman who fell for a stranger while en route to meet her husband and their child. For her performance as Meenakshi Iyer in the romance drama, she received the National Film Award for Best Actress.
Page 3 (2005)
Her fame got even wider with her role as a journalist discovering the ‘not-so-glamorous’ side of celebrity lives on Page 3 (2005). She won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film. Besides her, the cast included Atul Kulkarni, Tara Sharma, Boman Irani and Sandhya Mridul among others. The drama was directed by Madhur Bhandarkar and produced by Bobby and Kavita Pushkarna.
Omkara (2006)
The Vishal Bhardwaj-directed movie Omkara is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello. Konkona played the role of Indu Tyagi in this crime drama, which was praised by the audience as well as by critics. She won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award and a second National Award under the Best Supporting Actress category for her performance in the movie.
Life in a…Metro (2007)
A year after Omkara (2006), this film got her the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award for a second consecutive year. She stars as one of the nine people living and working in Mumbai, who fatefully come across one another and mature up in life. This Anurag Basu directorial is partly based on Billy Wilder’s romantic comedy, The Apartment (1960).
Ajeeb Daastaans (2021)
This is a collection of four short stories, in which Konkona Sen Sharma appears in ‘Geeli Pucchi’ alongside Aditi Rao Hydari Sharma. ‘Geeli Pucchi’ translates to ‘sloppy kiss’, taken from a scene of the short story where Aditi kisses Konkona’s hand. The movies aptly portray a queer love story of two women, who find solace in one another in a male-dominated work environment but owing to societal obligations, fail to have a happy ending together.
Konkona Sen Sharma: Her Directed Films
A Death In The Gunj (2016)
This was Konkona’s first film as a director, and it received eight nominations at the Filmfare Awards. It was produced under the banners of Studioz IDrream and MacGuffin Pictures and boosted an ensemble cast that included Vikrant Massey, Tilotama Shome, Kalki Koechlin, and Jim Sarbh, among others. Konkona even won a Filmfare for Best Debut Director for the thriller drama.
Lust Stories 2 (2023)
Konkona directed one of the four short stories in this Netflix original anthology movie. She directed the second story ‘The Mirror’ which saw Tillotama Shome as a working woman and Amruta Subhash as her house help.
The plot revolves around the house help engaging in physical gratification with her lover at her employer’s house and the employer secretly watching them through their reflection in a mirror. It fetched Amruta the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Web Original Film.
Konkona Sen Sharma: Upcoming Project
Metro In Dino (2025)
The sequel to Life in a…Metro (2007), Metro In Dino was supposed to hit the theatres on November end of this year, however, it got postponed to 2025. Besides Konkona, the ensemble cast includes Sara Ali Khan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Ali Fazal, Pankaj Tripathi, Neena Gupta, and Anupam Kher. The romance drama follows the same theme as its prequel, i.e., recording the intertwined lives of different individuals.
Mis(s)Chief
Konkona has bagged an international project titled Mis(s)Chief. Helmed by Anu Vaidyanathan, the movie will see the actress paired opposite Spanish actor Carlos Bardem, brother of the Academy Award-winning actor Javier Bardem. The announcement of the film was made at the Film Bazaar in Goa.
Mis(s)chief, a cooperation between the UK and India-based Avani Films, is in a developmental stage and has progressed to the second round of the 2025 Sundance Development Labs as a curated entry, reported Variety.
Konkona has given the industry several path-breaking characters and brought important topics of discussion to the table. With age and experience, she continues to get better in her craft.
Read More: Konkona Sen Sharma Birthday: Her Award-Winning Bollywood Movies, Directorial And Upcoming
