THE METHOD MATTERS
An indie favourite, actor Shahana Goswami is back with her first theatrical release since 2018—Nandita Das’s Zwigato
Shahana Goswami has a preternatural ability to make her presence felt regardless of the duration of her part. The effortless ease of her performance was evident in acclaimed indies Tu Hai Mera Sunday (2016) and Gali Guleiyan (2017), and it’s what she does in Nandita Das’s upcoming feature, Zwigato, playing supportive wife Pratima to Kapil Sharma’s Manas, a struggling food delivery provider in Bhubaneswar. “Pratima’s story is secondary to the bigger picture, but Goswami makes her a woman of patience and understanding,” said a review in Screen Daily after the film’s world premiere in Busan last year. The drama releases in Indian theatres on March 17.
It makes one wonder why Goswami isn’t a recurring fixture—Zwigato is her first theatrical release since 2018. She understands the grouse, but with 18 years of industry experience, she feels her trajectory is one with fewer regrets and more enriching parts. She enjoys the reputation of being an indie film darling who delivers. “People will always put you in a slot,” she says. “When you shift gears, you have to wait it out for something you actually want to do.” Goswami started out doing supporting parts in relatively commercial films like Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.
(2007) and Rock On!! (2008). Then came big-budget fare: Break Ke Baad (2010), Ra.One (2011) and Heroine (2012). “I gained different things from those films, but not creative satisfaction,” she says. That has changed now with the rise of OTT platforms. Goswami stood out for her role as a woman excelling at work but struggling to keep her marriage together in Alankrita Shrivastava’s feminist drama Bombay Begums (2021, Netflix). “The volume of work increases and it allows different storytelling and narrative styles,” she says. “But I want to do something that surprises me and the audience.” Her coactor, popular comedian and TV show host Kapil Sharma, she adds, does exactly that in Zwigato.
The film marks her second collaboration with Das after Firaaq (2008) and she is all praise for the actor-filmmaker’s ‘tenacity’ and for etching a part like Pratima. Says Goswami, “She has a great sense of clarity and is thorough with the storytelling and the subtleties, layers and nuances.” Goswami believes Zwigato is Das’s best work to date. For Goswami, Zwigato is the beginning of a promising year. There’s a small but impactful part opposite Manoj Bajpayee in Despatch and another in the Anu Menon-directed Amazon Prime Video film, Neeyat, which also stars Vidya Balan. She has also shot for a short, part of an anthology, directed by National Award-winning Assamese filmmaker Rima Das (Village Rockstars, 2017). They may not be ‘big’ projects, but for Goswami, what matters is the big heart at the core of the collaborative process. ■