NYIFF 2025-I'm Not An Actor

I’M NOT AN ACTOR
Director: Aditya Kripalani
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Chitrangada satarupa
Language: Hindi, English, German
Length: 2 Hours
Year: 2025

Synopsis:

Mouni is a puritanical actor who hates Mumbai. She hates the commerce that overshadows the art each day and life here in general. It is her deepest dream to move abroad to any part of Europe and do Shakespeare. She ends up at an online audition with Adnan, a 55 year old Kashmiri Muslim man, who’s now a retired banker living in Frankfurt, Germany.Adnan is depressed and having just retired he’s desperately seeking a new sense of self. After the audition in which Mouni improvises to make Adnan react genuinely, they're both shortlisted. Shocked with the power of acting, he begs her to teach him. This sets off a day long acting class between two countries and two very different people over a long video call. It unravels their pasts, their fears, their pains and joys and leaves them changed.

Like any good acting class should. We explore both Mumbai, dirty, grimy, soiled, dark, dense, intense and Frankfurt, squeaky clean, bright, colorful and as we see with the people, so also we see with the cities, that at the heart they're very similar. But acting is psychology. And now they both must learn to be vulnerable. To trust.

Aditya Kripalani is a writer, director, and producer based in Frankfurt, Germany. A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India’s Script Writing program, he has been a writer who’s written for advertising, novels and feature films. And all his characters are grappling with society and their relationship with it. There is a nudging of viewers and readers to introspect upon their habits, in all his work. His work almost always consists of people from the minority community fighting for equality and their right to the dignity of work and an everyday existence. Almost all his films have women protagonists and he works hard at eliminating the male gaze by bringing on board collaborators as equals who are all women, be it the DOP, the Editor, the Producer, the Art director, the Costume stylist, the Hair & Makeup team, the Executive Producer etc. He also produces films made by women. As a writer, director & producer, Aditya has films under his belt which have been awarded various prestigious International awards. His latest feature film,’Not Today’ which deals with the sensitive topic of suicide prevention won the prestigious International Critics 'FIPRESCI Award'. Aditya’s third feature film, ‘Devi Aur Hero’ (The Goddess and the Hero) which deals with sex addiction and mental disorder, won the NETPAC award for Best film award at the 25th Kolkata International Film Festival. His first 2 films Tikli & Laxmi Bomb and The Incessant Fear of Rape both feminist films streamed on Netflix globally for 4 years each.