She is a woman of many talents and interests. Telling stories is what fuels her passion, and to her, the medium doesn’t matter. Her films (Nil Battey Sannata, Bareilly Ki Barfi and Panga) have a lot of heart, and brim with spirit. She lets her woman protagonist lead the way, while giving ample space for the men in the plot to shine a fine feat. Filmmaker, author and producer Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, in a conversation with us, talks about her process and purpose, as a filmmaker. And she knows when to turn off the noise around her and focus on work and conversations, like these. Read on…

Yes, they are. My advertising background helped me see that there is a world outside our world. Everyone has ambitions, someone’s ambition could be to earn Rs 100, while someone else’s could be to see their daughter speak English and move to a big city. I wanted to see stories of people across our country, stories of people sitting in Bareilly, Lucknow, Aurangabad and places outside the big metros. We are an ambitious country and I feel that with the changing dynamics of the country, we need to view things differently. It is also about telling our stories to the world. When I made Bareilly Ki Barfi, my contemporaries from my advertising days said, ‘Yaar, tune ghar ki yaad dila di.’ However far we go, we want to go back to our core and roots.

I would say, yes. I think it’s the case with every filmmaker, hence, everyone has their own style, which reflects in their movies. As a filmmaker, your voice is what people come for. Maybe, I can change my genre, but not my voice.

I think the male gaze and female gaze is very important. Both Nitesh (Tiwari, husband) and I are directors, and of course, we discuss our work, read each other’s screenplays and write for each other. We see a story from both sides, objectively. If you are telling the story from the women’s point of view, then the female gaze works. Even for the web series that I directed, Faadu – A Love Story, the actors Pavail Gulati and Saiyami Kher told me that, ‘You don’t realize how sensitive you are to certain things’.

Yes, very much. We know each other’s strengths and are brutally honest. We have worked with each other for really long. We also know when to draw the line and back off, and that is also important. Our end focus is the same, but our way of filmmaking is very different.

A lot changed because of the pandemic and given the consumption of content across genres and languages on OTT platforms. I think telling a story is like having a relationship, you have to keep doing what you think is correct. As storytellers, we need to tell stories that we believe in, but we also need to be mindful of the changing times in our society. I am not saying that we have to think of numbers while writing a film, but we should know what audience we are writing for.

I don’t think we are the kind to panic, but we want to tell stories that we feel can connect with an audience, while aligning with good partners. No one starts out saying that they want to make a bad film. What is happening currently is no one’s fault. It’s like a cricket match — we thought that our favourite player would play well today, but it wasn’t a good day for him. I would definitely agree that the economics of making a film has to change. Somewhere, we were living in a different world where we felt that to make a good film, certain elements were required, but that’s not entirely true. During the pandemic, we weren’t allowed to work with a big crew, it was tough, but we managed. I think that a film does not belong to just the director and producer, hence, every department needs to think about the economics of the movie, so that at the end of the day no one feels the pressure.

At one point of time, we were telling slice-of-life stories and small-town films were working. Maybe, now we have grown beyond that and there are new ways of telling stories. Lots of unconventional stories are being told, and also a lot of technology has come into play and changed the way we are making films. It helps in the way the audience sinks into a story. Yes, it’s important for us to adapt as filmmakers and understand the language of the audience. I don’t think 100 crores can be the new benchmark for every film, especially post-pandemic. Not all storytellers are making big films or films with established stars or have the kind of budgets that some do. I feel it is important to encourage more storytellers to come forward, but we can’t have a young director worry about box-office numbers. That can’t be the barometer. Today, everything is in the public domain — like a film’s budget and BO numbers - and we all know that when a film features big stars, it’s a high-budget film. But all filmmakers and producers are different, and everyone can’t make the same kind of cinema.

I love the space of writing a book. Social media has taken up a lot of our life. As creators, we need to sacrifice a lot of things too. Just like an athlete, who knows that when a game is coming up, and they need to cut off. We have to be very clear when to be out there and when to step back. We all need gratification, and for me, the most important thing is that people may not know me, but they know of my work. I am well aware that because I am doing good work and my films are out there, I am looked at. Tomorrow, if I don’t have stories to tell, no one will look at me. I am very passionate about my work, but I can detach. I have already started writing my next book, and at some point, I will go off social media too. It is important for us as directors to understand what our purpose is. We can’t be everything.

Yes, I see myself doing that as I believe that we are more than what we can do. Often, we tell ourselves that we can do only this much, but when we look back, we realize that there is probably a lot more we could have done. I feel these tags that we give ourselves — writer, filmmaker, author — are unimportant. We are all telling stories. We take ourselves too seriously, we don’t need to. I have realized that the moment you stop giving yourself these tags and do whatever you like, it’s liberating. I am a storyteller, and I can tell a story in any medium.