Though she was missing from the film industry for more than two years, Vishakha Singh was busy with her film production and business venture. And her upcoming film Fukrey Returns will hit the theatres soon. The actor, who dons multiple avatars, talks about her film production, business start-up and why she isn’t very keenly looking to act .
Vishakha stopped acting almost two years ago, but isn’t worried about it. “I am very lucky to have the good fortune of saying no to films early in my career. I felt that films aren’t giving me any kind of satisfaction. That’s when I decided to take a step back and channelise my energy in the right direction. I am not aggressively pursuing acting,” she quips.
The actor-turned-producer, mentions that if a good script comes her way, she will take it up.”I am beyond that stage of doing silly, slapstick comedy. Ours is a male-dominated industry and the character written for a female actor would be a man’s idea of how a woman should be. It can either be naive or just fancy! I am not looking for female-centric roles only. I am here to do content-driven films that can reach a wide audience.”
Apart from a Marathi film and a Hindi film, she has also produced a short film titled Mehram. “This film, starring Farida Jalal, tackles the delicate issue of Saudi laws disallowing women to perform Hajj unless accompanied by a male blood relative. The film was recently selected at the Woodpecker Film festival held in Delhi,” she says.
Vishakha has also ventured in the tech and digital advertising space. A post graduate in Advertising and PR and her experience within the film industry helped her in her new tech venture, IconicBOT that she co-founded. “IconicBOT is India’s first Artificial Intelligence powered multi-lingual chatbot that connects influencers (actors) with all their fans with just one click on all major messaging platforms,” she explains.
During the seventh edition of Women Entrepreneurs Quest (WEQ) 2017 that was held in November, Vishakha was announced as one of the top 10 winners.
Talking about her upcoming Hindi film Fukrey Returns, Vishakha says, “It was a great reunion of sorts for me. The second part is more bizarre and funny. You can see a different level of craziness this time from the film.”
