Richa Chadha’s maiden production Girls Will Be Girls has a reason to celebrate. At the Berlinale Co-production Market that was held from February 12 to 16, the film won the Talents Footprints Mastercard grant — an annual funding designed to help filmmakers achieve social impact through financial support, mentorship and public awareness. Chadha and director Shuchi Talati’s winning proposal was an incubation programme to increase women’s participation in the grips and lighting department in the Hindi film industry. 

The programme was proposed with the vision to promote women’s inclusion and training in technical areas that are currently dominated by men. Chadha says the idea struck them when they began production work on Girls Will Be Girls. “When Shuchi and I were building an all-women crew, we realised there are no women in some departments. That’s when we thought, ‘How can we come up with solutions to increase the participation of women?’ Our teammate Tanya Negi came up with the idea of the incubation programme. We sent in an application since our script was at the Berlinale Script Station last year, and won this grant,” she says.

Having received the grant of €5,000, Chadha hopes to rope in Bollywood’s senior cinematographers and members of Indian Women Cinematographer Collective (IWCC) to train the applicants. Director Talati adds, “We are inviting all Mumbai-based women who are interested in learning about cinema lighting. Electricians, engineers, and aspiring cinematographers should apply. We are also [hoping] the film fraternity supports us by providing mentorship to our trainees.”