Fareeda Mehta
Fareeda Mehta (born July 1959) is an Indian film director who makes short films, documentaries and feature films. Also she collaborates closely with the Press Trust of India and organizations such as UNICEF, NCERT, NORAD and NFDC.
Fareeda Mehta
- Name
- Fareeda Mehta
- Born
- 1959 7
- Occupation
- Film Director, Screenwriter
- Nationality
- India
- Education
- Film and Television Institute of India
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Fareeda Mehta (born July 1959) is an Indian film director who makes short films, documentaries and feature films. Also she collaborates closely with the Press Trust of India and organizations such as UNICEF, NCERT, NORAD and NFDC.
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Fareeda Mehta (born 1959) is an Indian film director and screenwriter. The film director studied at Film and Television Institute of India.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 26 September 2026
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Fareeda Mehta • Born — 1959 7 • Occupation — Film Director, Screenwriter
Early life and education
Early life and education
Mehta studied social sciences at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Bombay and later film directing at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune.
Career
Career
After graduating at the FTII, Pune as a film director, Mehta made her first short film Hawa Ka Rang in 1989, which was awarded the first prize at the Turin Film Festival. She has also worked on several films directed by Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul as an assistant. Her first feature film as a director was the 2002 film Kali Salwaar starring Sadiya Siddiqui, Irrfan Khan, Kay Kay Menon and Vrajesh Hirjee. Centred on a Muslim prostitute coming from Muzaffarpur to Mumbai, Kali Salwaar was an almost abstract odyssey into migration, marginalization, and displacement. Her film is based on a story by Saadat Hasan Manto, the leftist Urdu short story writer of the nineteenth century. Almost the entire film was shot in her neighbourhood in Mumbai, focusing on a lively bazaar. Although the main themes are displacement and the sense of loss in an anonymous metropolis, the setting breathes a striking intimacy. Sultana, the main character, together with her husband and pimp Khudabaksh, soon find out that life in Mumbai is often beyond their control. With nothing left to make ends meet, Khudabaksh is attracted to fakir mysticism, leaving behind his wife, alone with the desperate wish to find a black garment to wear during Moharram, the Islamic month of mourning. According to Fareeda, Kali Salwaar does not have a message per se, but deals with exchange of energies. In a silent way it creates contemplative spaces in which the audience can pause and let imagination, emotions, and memory roam free. Kali Salwaar has been shown in many international film festivals, including the Indian Panorama in the International Film Festival of India, Goteborg Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival (2003) and Durban International Film Festival (2003). It was nominated for 'Best Film' at the Bogota film festival. In her own words: "Perhaps cinema is the best form to show the unfolding of Destiny. Destiny, not as predetermined fate, but as it is getting made – as an unfolding of time and events within time. It gets made as people meet and exchange – a few words, or a look, or money. Seemingly inconsequential encounters change you forever and each time. In Kali Salwaar, I try to come close to this pulse of random movement and imperceptible ‘happening’".
Short films
Short films
• Year — Title — Notes • 1989 — Hawa Ka Rang • 1994 — Paitrik Sampati • 1994 — Yaadon Ke Kinaare
Documentary films
Documentary films
• Year — Title — Notes • 1991 — Bhavatarana — Worked as a Screenwriter only. • 1995 — In Search of Greener Pastures
Feature films
Feature films
• Year — Title — Notes • 1991 — Kasba — Worked as a Screenwriter only. • 2002 — Kali Salwaar
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Directors Jocelyn Saab and Fareeda Mehta feel that films can work as a wake up call to women. The Hindu (newspaper). 24 March 2008.
- 2.Kali Salwaar (2002) - Fareeda Mehta Cinephilanderer.com website, Published 3 August 2009, Retrieved 3 June 2021
- 3.Fatema Kagalwala. Unshackling Sultana (By shifting focus to the macro, Kali Salwar ceases to be a sex worker's story). The Hindu (newspaper). 13 May 2017.
- 4.Fareeda Mehta profile on International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) website Retrieved 3 June 2021
References
Citations
References
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 19 September 2026.
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