‘Be the person you want to be’
Starring Deepika Padukone, the short film features portraits of 99 women
Deepika Padukone has collaborated with filmmaker Homi Adajania to put together a short film titled My Choice that talks of a woman’s right to make decisions that govern her life. The film has been written by Kersi Khambatta and is part of the #VogueEmpower initiative that was launched last year. It features moving portraits of 99 women across age, demographics and professions. My Choice had a special screening on Saturday and in less than 24 hours it went viral on social media.
“To me freedom of choice boils down to being the person you want to be,” said Deepika at the screening. “I grew up in a family where there’s me, my sister, my mum and my father is the only male in the house. All of us have a voice; if we had an opinion, we were allowed to share. My father never said
that you have to do this or you have to do that. I think you can only feel truly empowered, when you’re not caged, when you don’t succumb to expectations and do the things that you want to do,” she added.
But before that happens, acceptance is key, the actress feels. “You can only be what you want to be when you have accepted yourself for what you are, with all your flaws and strengths. You need to love yourself first before you can go out there and say, ‘this is who I am and this is what I stand for’,” Deepika said.
Speaking of his journey of making the short film, Homi said, “It was a creative collaboration between Deepika and me and we wanted to use real women and we wanted it to be very organic. I think Kersi Khambatta has written some extremely powerful words. We called in the 99 women you see in the film, but we didn’t tell them what we were doing. They were extremely sporty about it.”
My Choice