Pan Nalin directs film for beauty campaign

Mumbai, April 26 (IANS) With an aim to redefine the existing beauty standards in India and inspire people to embrace the country’s diverse shades of beauty, “Angry Indian Goddesses” director Pan Nalin has shot a film for a campaign “Let’s Break the Rules of Beauty”, initiated by beauty brand Dove.
The director says “diversity of beauty” in India is celebrated very rarely and he jumped at the occasion to be part of the campaign for its “originality and honesty”.
“For centuries, we have built an ideal for beauty in India, even the recent cinema is celebrating only a certain type of beauty… very rarely do we celebrate the diversity of beauty. What attracted me to this campaign was originality, honesty and, of course, the opportunity to work with so many women from diverse backgrounds and different cultural heritage,” Nalin said in a statement.
Through a film shot with 85 women across India, Dove’s new campaign “Let’s Break the Rules of Beauty” invites women to make their own features as celebrated as existing stereotypes and aims to widen the existing beauty ideals in India. The campaign will go live on television on Tuesday, and will find its way on YouTube in May.
A new research conducted by Dove stated that 76 percent of Indian women believe in today’s society and the notion that it is critical to meet certain beauty standards. It was also revealed that the pressure to comply to Indian beauty ideals still exists with 80 percent Indian women and 77 percent Indian girls believe that to do well in life, they need to look a certain way.
After the research, the brand’s team decided to come up with a campaign. The “Let’s Break the Rules of Beauty” film captures the beauty of 85 women in their own avatars and celebrates their own idea of beauty.
Srirup Mitra, general manager – Hindustan Unilever, said “culturally, India is experiencing a real movement towards female empowerment”.
“Our research reveals that 67 percent of Indian women and 64 percent Indian girls would like to see a more diverse range of beauty represented in the media. Over 50 years, we have supported women, all over the world, to see beauty as a source of confidence and not anxiety. With our new campaign on real beauty we would like to further encourage conversations on the evolving ideals of beauty in India,” Mitra said.