London, Nov. 4: Tannishtha Chatterjee pipped other actresses to the coveted lead role of Nazneen in the film adaptation of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane partly because she was considered the most appropriate for the role and partly, it seems, because of her darker complexion.

Tannishtha, who yesterday attended a screening of Brick Lane for the cast and crew at the French Institute’s Cine Lumiere in west London, has already been nominated for best actress — alongside the internationally renowned Dame Judi Dench — in the British International Film Awards.

“I’m sure she will also be nominated for a Bafta (the British equivalent of the Oscar that is awarded by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts),” predicted Sangeeta Datta, Brick Lane associate director, whose job was to ensure the film remained authentically Bengali, contribute to the music and help supervise the shooting near Calcutta.

Datta disclosed that Tannishtha was almost the first actress to be seen by the director, Sarah Gavron, but Sameera Reddy, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rituparna Sengupta and Raima Sen were also considered.

While it may be difficult for women who are not fair or at least “wheat-complexioned” to make it in Bollywood, in Tannishtha’s case her darker complexion appears actually to have helped her clinch the coveted role. In London, the prejudice, if any, often tends to work the other way with Asian actresses.

Tannishtha plays a 17-year-old Bangladeshi girl who is uprooted from her Bangladeshi rural idyll and thrust into the harsh reality of a council flat in the East End of London to begin married life with Chanu (Satish Kaushik), a much older husband her father had picked for her. The story really begins 16 years into her marriage when the couple, having lost a son, now have two feisty daughters, Shahana (Naeema Begum) and Bibi (Lana Rahman).

“At least, with Tannishtha, there was no need to give her a darker make up,” Datta pointed out.

After a protest by a Bangladeshi group in London who said they feared the film would ridicule Bangladeshi immigrants, as they alleged the novel had (this criticism was dismissed by the author), there was never a realistic chance that Brick Lane’s early sequences and flashbacks could be shot in Bangladesh. Its government had even refused to grant a visa to Monica Ali.

But Bangladesh’s loss was Calcutta’s gain, which the cast and crew visited four times, Datta said.

Brick Lane begins with two girls running through green and lush paddy fields, reminiscent of Durga and Apu running through the fields in Pather Panchali.

“It was a very conscious tribute to Ray,” acknowledged Datta.

However, what is depicted as a lovely Bangladeshi village is the village of Hari Pota — “we joked it was Harry Potter” — barely 15 minutes drive from Eastern Bypass and ITC Sonar Bangla in Calcutta, laughed Datta.

The people of Calcutta may not recognise the location but “you are in pristine rural countryside”, revealed Datta.

Brick Lane’s director Gavron told The Telegraph yesterday that the film was not intended to be controversial. She had set out to make an adaptation that was “complex, subtle and nuanced”. She admitted she was “disappointed” that Prince Charles, fearing possible Bangladeshi protests, had pulled the plug on royal endorsement.

Told that many people were saying that her film was possibly better than the book, she responded modestly: “I can’t say that.”

Tannishtha herself was also charmingly self-effacing yesterday in marked contrast to a British Asian-looking newcomer by the name of Christopher Simpson, who plays Nazneen’s young lover Karim in the film but who refused to be photographed or interviewed after the screening.

“Get in touch with my agent,” he ordered, a touch pompously.

“It’s gone to his head,” commented a bystander.

Datta forecast a bright future for Tannishtha, 29, “just as there was for Seema Biswas after Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen”.

Tannishtha explained her role: “Although Nazneen is a village girl, not educated in the western sense, she liberates herself.”

More tellingly, she compared her role with that of Nasima in a just broadcast two-part gritty Channel 4 drama Britz, based on the radicalisation of young British Muslims post 9/11. The drama shows Nasima, a 20-year-old medical student from Bradford, becoming a suicide bomber.

“While Nazneen goes forward, makes a life in Brick Lane and empowers herself, Nasima, though much more educated than her, goes backward,” said Tannishtha.