As her directorial debut, Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi premieres at the city film fest, Seema Pahwa on star-obsessed industry
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; October 18, 2019)

Giving shape to her maiden directorial venture, Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi, has been far from easy for actor Seema Pahwa. The Bareilly Ki Barfi actor says that it is unfortunate that the industry continues to be obsessed with the star system. "Producers refused to back my film as it didn’t have stars. When I held meetings with potential producers, they asked to me to cast a big star and add a few commercial elements to the film. It was only after I spoke about the [predicament] at an interview that word spread and Drishyam Films [producers] reached out to me," recounts Pahwa, whose film is set to premiere at the ongoing MAMI Film Festival.

The quirky comedy — that revolves around a family that comes together for a funeral — boasts of a stellar ensemble cast, including Naseeruddin Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma and Vikrant Massey. Was she nervous directing such powerhouse performers? "I was surprised when each actor I reached out to agreed to come on board. I hope our film exemplifies that good content, not a popular face, is the real star of a movie."

As Vikrant Massey's Cargo is set for festival premiere in Mumbai, the director Arati Kadav reveals how she shot sci-fi at 'one-millionth the budget of Gravity'!
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; October 8, 2019)

By the very nature of their subjects, sci-fi films are often mounted on a big budget. However, the budgetary constraint did not deter director Arati Kadav from imagining Cargo, a sci-fi black comedy — featuring Vikrant Massey and Shweta Tripathi — built on an unlikely premise. "It is the story of a spaceship that comes close to Earth every morning and waits for dead people. The spaceship doubles up as an immigration office for the dead," she explains.

While producer Anurag Kashyap and executive producer Vikramaditya Motwane saw promise in the spaceship designed for the film story, the challenge was to shoot the movie on the limited budget — "one millionth of Gravity (right)," as Kadav puts it — they had. The first step was to develop a comprehensive storyboard. "Each shot was planned to the last detail. We also came up with solutions to make this world authentic in terms of techniques to show zero gravity. For the design of the spaceship, we took inspiration from the bio-mechanism of jelly fish," she says, adding that they faced logistical issues while shooting inside the mock spaceship. "Because it was relatively lightweight, it would shake when the crew walked around. So we recreated a part of the spaceship on ground for steady camerawork."

Kadav beams that the film being chosen for the MAMI Spotlight section is a validation of her belief. "The idea was to take references from reality and movies, but make something ground up in a way that resonated with us culturally."


The spaceship designed for the film