New Delhi, Nov 7 (TIWN): Acclaimed film actress and director Nandita Das, who is always passionate about women's welfare and gender equality, is no stranger to tackling difficult issues that are often missed or go unnoticed, as did most notably in her film "Zwigato", starring Kapil Sharma.

At the launch of the ILSS Emerging Women's Leadership Program in New Delhi, Das, however, spoke about her short film "Listen to Her".

She shot the film, which, like "Zwigato", also revolves around the theme of the complexities of life under Covid-induced lockdowns, at home with son Vihaan and it zeroes in on the issue of women being overburdened while staying back and facing domestic violence to boot.

"One fine morning, I woke up and read this newspaper article about how women are being overburdened during the lockdown. And I am talking about the privileged class, who are attending zoom meetings and taking care of their kids and what is being cooked at home," Das said, unspooling her memories of how the idea for the film germinated.

"Domestic violence was on the rise -- not just in India, but the world over," Das said. "These two threads somehow came together. If we say domestic violence exists in a certain class, we know it's not true, it's across classes. I'll be afraid to acknowledge that."

She added: "There is an overburden of work, not just in the poorer sections, but across all classes, and probably in a strange and a more subtle way, in a more privileged class."

Das, who was seen most recently at the Toronto International Film Festival, where she had premiered "Zwigago", then went explain how she shot the entire short film at home

"I didn't even have a tripod. I had no filming equipment. So, just with my phones, and I had two phones -- one phone to shoot and the sound rolling in the other, which I would give to my cook. And so that seven-page story I wrote one morning, was shot by the next," Das recalled.

"It is just a little story about two women when there wasn't another woman around. The rest are all voices. And there is a male voice. A lot of people asked me where Ali Fazal was sitting. And I was like, 'No, he wasn't in my bedroom'."

Das said women need to be confident and open up on different issues. She said on certain occasions, because they carried different responsibilities, women often forget what they wanted in life and what their hobbies were. She added that she advises friends not to be overburdened and think about their needs as well.