Rising Sisterhood in Cinematic Narrative: Evolving through the Lens of Laapataa Ladies, Santosh and All We Imagine As Light

Abstract

Sisterhood history is obscure as women-women relations have been a negative. The culprit being the Patriarchal narratives. Ingrained subconsciously and the added support of the institutions, the sisterhood faced challenges to survive. Despite the three waves of feminism in the twentieth century and phases of suppressed feminism in the twenty first century, the ‘women problem’ still exists. The so-called empowerment remains an illusion and distant dream. Women need to support each-other and also stand by each other. Lately, the thematic representation in cinemas has also been echoing the same. With a plethora of movies that aim to drum it in that women need to support women in order to empower each other. It is anything but surprising that the Oscar nominations under the category of Foreign Films this year are three Hindi language films – Laapataa Ladies, Santosh, All we imagine as Light from India, Britain and France respectively; and the underlying theme in them is the Sisterhood! All we imagine as Light has already claimed the Grand Prix award at Cannes Film Festival this year. Recognition through awards provides institutional support to create the awareness needed to combat the ignorance generated by years of patriarchal narratives. This Paper aims to highlight the growing instances of Sisterhood themes in films, with special emphasis on Laapata Ladies, Santosh and All we imagine as Light; the consequential impact of these cinematic narrative on the social change as mirrored in the cinematic representation.