Soha Ali Khan was nervous while shooting with mother Sharmila Tagore for Life Goes On, an English feature film written and directed by London-based Sangeeta Datta now being screened at the 16th Kolkata Film Festival (KFF).

The film has several USPs. The top one is Sharmila Tagore and Soha Ali Khan portraying mother and daughter on screen for the first time, their real life relationship spilling over on screen.

When asked how it felt enacting the real-life mother-daughter role on screen, Soha who plays Sharmila's youngest daughter in the film, says, "I was very nervous before the shoot - sharing screen space with the living legend Sharmila Tagore was something. She can be very intimidating both as an actor and a mother."

"To face her in both avatars was quite daunting! There is something awkward about working with someone who you are on such intimate terms with - they know your every expression, every insincerity - it poses a different kind of challenge but then adds so much to the performance I feel, especially for a film like Life Goes On.

"I did not have to use glycerine even once. I went to a slightly dark place in my head and that would do the trick instantaneously!"

Life Goes On is an English language film shot entirely in London written and directed by filmmaker Sangeeta Datta who is also based in London. The film is to be premiered in three cities in the USA by Databazaar Media Ventures headed by Oney Seal on Dec 3 this year.

Databazaar has picked up many Bengali films and films made by Bengali filmmakers for distribution in North America.

Datta is a well-known writer whose analytical book on Shyam Benegal has received much acclaim.

She is also a director who has made several documentaries such as The Way I See It on Indian women filmmakers, In Search of Durga on the UK diaspora, culture and religion, Working with Worries on children with learning problems and a sort film called Letter from an Ordinary Girl that is a contemporarised celluloid adaptation of Tagore's long poem Sadharan Meye. Life Goes On is Sangeeta Datta's first feature film.

Catch the screenings at Rabindra Sadan and Mitra at the festival.