Begum Jaan was a difficult film to do, says Vidya Balan

Vidya Balan is stepping into the shoes of a woman torn between India-Pakistan in her next ‘Begum Jaan’ and the actress says the film will bring out an interesting story revolving around women during Partition.

‘Begum Jaan’ is a Hindi adaptation of director Srijit Mukherji's Bengali film ‘Rajkahini’. The Hindi version stars Vidya in the lead as a madam of a brothel. The film chronicles the lives of women living in a brothel, who find themselves divided by the newly-drawn LoC with half of the house in India and the other half in Pakistan post-partition and how these women fight for their rights.

"I don't think beyond textbooks we know anything more about Partition. There are not many films on Partition and not on women especially as in what happened to them. So it's an interesting story to tell," Vidya said.

The National Award-winning actress says considering the topic the film is dealing with, it features a lot of "emotional and mental" violence, which was difficult for her to bring out convincingly.

"I am the madam of a brothel and the film is set in the Partition times and we are at the risk of losing our house, our space so there is lot of emotional, mental and sexual violence and not physical violence. It was difficult to do the film as I am doing it for the first time," she says. ‘Begum Jaan’ is scheduled to arrive in cinema houses on April 14.