Liberty Cinema is an Art Deco 1200 seater single screen Movie theater in Mumbai, India. Since the cinema was built in 1947, the year of Indian Independence, its founder Habib Hoosein decided to name it "Liberty".^[1] Liberty screens Bollywood hindi movies.^[2] David Vinnels and Brent Skelly describe Liberty Cinema as "an exquisite jewel box of rococo decoration enhanced by a coloured lighting scheme suggesting a fairyland far away from the bustle and tumult in the streets outside" in their book Bollywood Showplaces: Cinema Theatres in India.^[3] On the fifth floor of the Liberty Cinema building there is a small 30 seater hall, Liberty Mini. Decorated with art from the pre-independence period, it is used for press previews and private screenings.^[4] Liberty has been the location of movie premiers of several movies, such as Mughal-e-Azam (a 1960 hit Bollywood movie).^[5]

Some movies have run at Liberty for a considerable period of time. Mother India, a Bollywood film ran for a whole year starting October 1957 at Liberty.^[6] Almost three decades later, Bollywoods most successful movie Hum Aapke Hain Kaun^[7] ran for 105 weeks in regular shows and 16 weeks in the matinee show in total from 1994 onwards at Liberty (completing its 100th week on the run in August 1996^[8]). In total the film ran for 2341 shows in 847 days from its first run.^[9] To celebrate this, noted painter M F Husain put up a canvas from his series celebrating the Woman as 'Shakti' at the foyer of Liberty Cinema. This piece of art was based on the lead actress of the movie, Madhuri Dixit.^[10]

With the entry of multiplex theaters in Mumbai which have been given tax breaks, single screen theaters like Liberty are finding it hard to do business. The current owner, Nazir Hoosein (son of the founder) has rented out part of the Liberty Cinema building for office use to supplement his income.^[1]

References[link]

v t e Tourist attractions in Mumbai Pre-colonial Elephanta Caves Kanheri Caves Worli Fort Mahim Fort Old Bombay Colonial Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus BMC Headquarters Hutatma Chowk Worli Fort David Sassoon Library Gateway of India Rajabai Tower Mount Mary's Church Crawford Market Bombay High Court Ballard Bunder Gatehouse South Mumbai Beaches Girgaum Chowpatty Dadar Chowpatty Juhu Beach Versova Beach Madh Island Aksa Beach Marvé Beach Powai Lake Places of worship Mumba Devi Mandir Mahalaxmi Temple Siddhivinayak temple Shitala Devi Temple Walkeshwar Temple Swaminarayan Mandir Haji Ali Mahim Church Cultural National Centre for the Performing Arts Jehangir Art Gallery Taraporewala Aquarium Asiatic Society of Mumbai Marine Drive Royal Opera House Regal Cinema Eros Cinema Metro Adlabs Nehru Science Centre Film City Capitol Cinema Liberty Cinema Boulevards Marine Drive Fashion Street Linking Road Nepean Sea Road Breach Candy Bandstand Promenade Worli Seaface Bandra-Worli Sea Link Carter Road Promenade Districts Western Suburbs Nariman Point Malabar Hill Kala Ghoda Colaba Bandra-Kurla complex Shopping Chor Bazaar Fashion Street Colaba Causeway Lamington Road Linking Road Buildings Bombay Stock Exchange Hutatma Chowk David Sassoon Library Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Nehru Planetarium India Government Mint Parks, zoos and stadia Hanging Gardens Gowalia Tank Sanjay Gandhi National Park Kamala Nehru Park Jijamata Udyaan Horniman Circle Gardens Cross Maidan Brabourne Stadium Wankhede Stadium Mahalaxmi Racecourse Shivaji Park Essel World Museums INS Vikrant Prince of Wales Museum Mani Bhavan National Gallery of Modern Art

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Fearless Nadia
Fearless Nadia in 11 O'Clock (1948)
Born	Mary Ann Evans (1908-01-08)January 8, 1908 Perth, Western Australia
Died	January 9, 1996(1996-01-09) (aged 88) Mumbai, India
Occupation	Film actress and stuntwoman
Years active	1933–70

Fearless Nadia (8 January 1908 – 9 January 1996) was an Indian film actress and stuntwoman, who is most remembered the masked, cloaked adventuress in Hunterwali (The Princess and the Hunter) released in 1935 ^[1][2][3], which was one of the earliest female lead Indian films ^[4].

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Fearless Nadia was born as Mary Ann Evans on 8 January 1908 in Perth, Western Australia. She was the daughter of Scotsman Herbertt Evans, a volunteer in the British Army, and Margret. They lived in Australia, before coming to India. Mary was one year old when Herbertt's regiment was seconded to Bombay. Mary came to Bombay in 1913 at the age of five with her father. She learned horseback riding during a stay in the North-West Frontier Province and then studied ballet under Madam Astrova after returning to Bombay in the mid-1920s.

Career[link]

She toured India as a theatre artist and began working for Zarko Circus in 1930. She changed her name to Nadia at the insistence of an Armenian fortune-teller. She was introduced to Hindi films by Jamshed "J.B.H." Wadia who was the founder of Wadia Movietone, the behemoth of stunts and action in 1930s Bombay. At first, J.B.H. was bemused at Mary's insistence on trying out for the movies, but he took a gamble by giving her a cameo as a slave girl (in a hand-painted colour sequence that accentuated her blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes) in an early Wadia Movietone film, Desh Deepak, and then as Princess Parizaad in Noor-e-Yaman. Nadia proved a huge hit with the audience, whereupon, considering her stated skills at performing circus and other stunts, J.B.H. -- by then joined by his younger brother Homi -- chose to develop her into a star.

1935 saw the release of her breakthrough film, Hunterwali, or "Lady of the Whip", and this was when she was permanently nicknamed Hunterwali -- the role that defined her career, and made her synonymous with the genre of stunt film. Her role in the film—which had her dressed in tight, revealing clothes, tall boots, while wielding a whip—became iconic in 1930s pre-independence India, which saw no irony in a white woman espousing the rights of the Indian masses and urging them to cast off the yoke of foreign imperialism and tyranny (obviously symbolized by the British Raj). She reprised the role in Hunterwali ki Beti some years later. Perhaps her best role, the most strongly written by J.B.H., was in Diamond Queen which is also perhaps the best made of all of Nadia's films, given J.B.H.'s passion for the themes of female emancipation and anti-colonialism, and a particularly strong supporting cast that included the stalwart John Cavas (a stuntman and bodybuilder himself, with a strong screen presence); Sayani, the ubiquitous villain whose trademark mustache and mannerisms endeared him to audiences; Sardar Mansoor, who appeared in many Wadia Movietone offerings, sometimes as hero, sometimes as second lead, and who was a rather decent singer as well; and, of course, the "stunt car" Rolls-Royce ki Beti ("Daughter of Rolls-Royce") and Gunboat the Dog (who performed many a stunt and trick himself!).

Nadia's last major role was in 1967-68, when she was in her late 50s, in a James Bond spoof called Khiladi ("The Players") where she donned a variety of disguises and took top billing and performed various stunts (although less daring than previous films), accompanied by a host of other stunt actors. While the film didn't succeed hugely at the box office given that the stunt genre was an anachronism perhaps in that day and age, it was rather well made and remains worth watching as an example of 1960s sensibilities marrying stunts and social themes in Indian cinema. It is interesting to note that quite a few historians insist that the "Angry Young Man" persona of Amitabh Bachchan wouldn't have come about had it not been for the example that Nadia's films set in combining stunts with a passion for social justice.

Personal life[link]

Throughout her career, Nadia had many love affairs and was linked to men of prominence. She was married twice. From her first marriage she had a son. After she was introduced to films by Mr. Wadia, she met his younger brother Homi Wadia. Soon they fell in love with each other but they didn't get married until the early 1960s, after the death of the Wadia brothers' orthodox Parsi mother who wouldn't let her son wed a "parjat". They were married in 1961. By the time they were married, Nadia was too old to have her own children. Instead, Homi adopted Nadia's son from her previous marriage.

Death[link]

She died at Cumballa Hill Hospital in Bombay in 1996, one day after her 88th birthday.

Legacy[link]

In 1993, Nadia's great grandnephew, Riyad Vinci Wadia, made a documentary of her life and films, called Fearless: The Hunterwali Story, after watching the documentary at the 1993 Berlin International Film Festival, Dorothee Wenner, a German freelance writer, and film curator, wrote a book, Fearless Nadia - The true story of Bollywood's original stunt queen, which was subsequently translated to English in 2005 ^[5]. In 2011, the Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne launched The Fearless Nadia Occasional Papers. These are original essays commissioned by the Australia India Institute focusing on various aspects of the relationship between India and Australia. The Institute declared that Fearless Nadia had brought a new joie de vivre and chutzpah into Indian cinema with her breathtaking ‘stunts’. The Occasional Papers Series seeks to inject a similar audacity and creative dialogue into the relationship between India and Australia.

References[link]

• Fearless Nadia : The True Story of Bollywood's Original Stunt Queen, by Dorothee Wenner. Penguin, 2005. ISBN 0-14-303270-4.

External links[link]

• Fearless Nadia at the Internet Movie Database
• Hunterwali images

1. REDIRECT Amitabh Bachchan

Nandita Das
Born	(1969-11-07) November 7, 1969 (age 42) New Delhi, India
Occupation	Actress, director
Years active	1989, 1996–present
Spouse	Soumya Sen (2002–2009) Subodh Maskara (2010–present)

Nandita Das (born 7 November 1969) is an award-winning Indian film actress and director. As an actress, she is known for her performances in Fire (1996), Earth (1998), Bawandar (2000), Kannathil Muthamittal (2002) and Aamaar Bhuvan (2002). As a director, she is known for her directorial debut Firaaq (2008), which has won a number of national and international awards. She has been awarded the Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France for her work.^[1]. Nandita Das was the first Indian to be inducted into their International Women's Forum's hall of fame.

Early life[link]

Das was born in New Delhi to noted Indian painter, Jatin Das, an Oriya Hindu Kayastha (Karanam or "Karan"), and a Gujarati Jain mother named Varsha who is a writer.^[2]

She went to Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Lodhi Estate in New Delhi. She received her bachelor's degree in Geography from Miranda House (University of Delhi) and Master of Social Work from the Delhi School of Social Work.^[3]

Career[link]

Acting[link]

Nandita Das started her acting career with the theatre group Jana Natya Manch. She taught at the Rishi Valley School.

She is best known for her performances in Deepa Mehta films Fire, Earth alongside Aamir Khan, Bawander (directed by Jagmohan Mundhra) and Amaar Bhuvan (directed by Mrinal Sen). Das has acted in films in ten different languages: English, Hindi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Marathi, Oriya and Kannada. The movie star Suganya provided Das' speaking voice in the Tamil classic Kannathil Muthamittal.

Das narrated the children's audiobook series Under the Banyan, and Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography by Charkha Audiobooks The Story of My Experiments with Truth. She has also lent her voice to the children's television series, Wonder Pets as the Bengal Tiger.

Directing[link]

In 2008, she completed filming her directorial debut, Firaaq.^[4] Firaaq is a work of fiction, based on a thousand true stories and is set a month after the Gujarat carnage in 2002. It is an ensemble film that interweaves multiple stories over a 24 hour period, as the characters from different strata of society, grapple with the lingering effects of violence. The film traces the emotional journeys of ordinary people - some who were victims, some perpetrators and some who chose to watch silently. The film's stellar cast includes Naseeruddin Shah, Raghubir Yadav, Paresh Rawal, Deepti Naval, Sanjay Suri, Tisca Chopra, Shahana Goswami and Nowaz.

The film won top honours at the Asian Festival of First Films 2008 in Singapore, where it won the awards for "Best Film", "Screenplay / Script", and "Foreign Correspondents Assn. Purple Orchid Award for Best Film".^[5][6] The film has also won awards at other international film festivals, including the Special Prize award at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece, the Special Jury Award at the International Film Festival of Kerala, and the Best Editor award for the film's editor Sreekar Prasad at the Dubai International Film Festival.^[7] It will be released in India on 20 March 2009.^[8] The film also won an award at the Kara Film Festival. Das said that the film "gave a voice to so much that remains silent".^[9]

Personal life[link]

In 2002, Das married Saumya Sen.^[10] The couple began Leapfrog, an advertising organization geared towards making socially conscious ad films.^[11] The couple divorced in 2009.^[12] After dating Subodh Maskara, an industrialist based out of Mumbai for a couple of months, she married him on January 2, 2010 and moved to Mumbai.^[13][14] Das and Maskara had a baby boy named Vihaan on 11 August 2010.^[15]

Philanthropy[link]

Das gives talks around the world about the impact of her films and the need for powerful social movements in India. She spoke at MIT on 12 April 2007 after a screening of Fire.

She also speaks to campaign for child survival, against AIDS, and violence against women.^[16] She was appointed as the chairperson of the Children's Film Society of India in 2009.^[17]

Awards and honours[link]

2000 45th Filmfare Awards

• Won - Best Debut - 1947 Earth

2001 Santa Monica Film Festival

• Won - Best Actress - Bawander

2002 Cairo International Film Festival

• Won - Best Actress - Amaar Bhuvan

2002 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards

• Won - Special Prize - Kannathil Muthamittal

2005 Cannes Film Festival

• May 2005 - Das served as a Member of the Jury at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival

2006 Nandi Awards

• Won - Best Actress - Kamli

2008 Asian Festival of First Films

• Won - Best Film - Firaaq
• Won - Best Screenplay - Firaaq
• Won - Foreign Correspondents Association Purple Orchid Award for Best Film - Firaaq

2008 Government of France

• Won - Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

2009 International Film Festival of Kerala

• Won - Special Jury Award - Firaaq

2009 Thessaloniki International Film Festival

• Won - Special Prize (Everyday Life: Transcendence or Reconciliation Award) - Firaaq
• Nominated - Golden Alexander - Firaaq

2010 Filmfare Awards

• Won - Special Award - Firaaq

Filmography[link]

Actor[link]

Director[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website
• Nandita Das at the Internet Movie Database

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nandita Das

• Interview 2003
• Interview 2006
• Nandita Das @ SPICE
• EVERYONE campaign of Save the Children India