Sheena Chohan joins Anam Biswas’ ‘UnFair’

Celebrated Indian actor Sheena Chohan has played the lead roles in seven feature films and worked with National Film Award-winning directors. She has joined the cast of UnFair, a short film about colourism and discrimination, helmed by Anam Biswas, the director of Debi. The fifteen-minute film is written by British screenwriter Fraser Scott, who has lately been in the limelight for his film on a female dalit auto-rickshaw driver in Kerala.  

Chohan was nominated in the Best Actress category at the Shanghai and Dubai Film Festivals for her role in Ant Story (Pipra Bidya), helmed by internationally acclaimed director Mostafa Sarwar Farooki. On the other hand, Biswas won the National Film Award of Bangladesh in the Best Screenplay category for Aynabaji in 2016. He liked Chohan’s performance in Ant Story.

UnFair follows the character of Sheena as she leaves her small village to pursue a career in modelling in Dhaka. However, owing to her dark skin tone, she faces discrimination. As a result, she resorts to using skin bleachers to try and make herself more presentable and acceptable for modelling jobs. The film aims to break the social stereotypes associated with fair skin.

“We live in a society where people still believe in fairness creams and matrimonial advertisements still demand fair brides and grooms. These outlooks need to change,” said Chohan. “I am keen on taking up more international projects and I really like Anam Biswas’ work. So, when this opportunity presented itself, I was thrilled. It is a prestigious and important film that presents a challenging role for me.”

The weeklong shoot of the film will take place at the end of this year.