There's a gap between reality and what mainstream cinema shows: Pan Nalin

Interview with filmmaker

Touted as India's first female buddy comedy, Angry Indian Goddesses, or AIG, has been in the news ever since the project was announced, be it for its eclectic star cast, novel theme or performance in the festival circuit. The buzz around it increased when it was announced as the the first runner-up for the Grolsch People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. However, AIG ran into choppy waters back home when the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) demanded as many as 16 cuts for words such as adivasi and sarkar. With the film finally having released earlier this week, Avantika Bhuyan speaks with director Pan Nalin about the process of creating AIG and his views on censorship

It's quite an interesting title. How did you choose it?

The title is a result of the organic evolution of the project. During research, we interviewed a lot of girls. Inevitably, 10 to 15 minutes into the conversation, each would end up expressing a certain anger and angst about issues - both big and small. During one such conversation, I just scribbled "Angry Indian Goddesses" on paper and it stayed on. There is a double metaphor of sorts in the title: it also stands for the ferocious avatar of Kali that destroys to bring about change. Every time we mentioned the title to people, it would put a big smile on their faces. They were curious about what the film was all about.

It's being called India's first female buddy film. Was it a conscious decision to take this direction or did the idea evolve over time?

It wasn't a conscious decision. I wanted to talk about friendship among women. If you ever overhear a conversation in a group of women, at first glance, it may seem about issues such as nail polish and clothes. But when you delve deeper, you find many layers. There's a gap between what the reality is and what we watch in the mainstream - and even in the so-called parallel cinema. So, I kept working on this idea of friendship. Then someone pointed out that so far there have only been male buddy films, with guys having a great time and girls only as decoration.

The film has an eclectic cast: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Amrit Maghera, Rajshri Deshpande and Pavleen Gujral. I believe you received applications from 800 women from India and abroad and shortlisted 200 possible candidates?

I wanted the movie to be realistic. So, I couldn't tell those auditioning to "read this scene in 10 minutes and then go out". It was just me, my colleague Dilip Shankar and co-writer, Subhadra Mahajan, trying to put the cast together. We decided that we wanted to hold in-depth conversations and not hold conventional auditions. So, we asked the aspirants about their perspective on women, their observations of colleagues and family members, and their belief system. These were extremely enlightening conversations, which also nourished the script in the process. A lot of them pointed out that this was unlike an audition and more like going to a shrink. A couple of them cried during the audition. That's when we realised that the film should be about giving each of them a voice.

How hard was it to find a distributor?

It was next to impossible. It was already so hard to make the film. Even after that, life didn't get any easier. In India, some distributors have monopoly over a certain kind of cinema. A handful of them judge what a nation of more than a billion people wants to see. We were beginning to believe that only we loved what we had created, but then we started showing the film to a lot of people, and started doing private screenings for people who didn't know me or my work. That gave us a lot of insight - people were laughing, crying, applauding. That encouraged us to fight for the film. Finally, Protein Entertainment came on board, followed by Anil Thadani. And then Toronto happened. The increasing buzz helped and now we have almost a 40-city release.

Your views on the 16 cuts asked by the CBFC?

It's so unfair and so sad. All these women worked so hard, on camera and behind it. Our film is about giving a voice to women. We are providing meaningful entertainment and not being vulgar. We were asked to do away with words like sarkar and adivasi and the phrase "Indian figure", as it showed women in a bad light. I would have understood if we had been asked to remove a kiss or cuss words. Moreover, the board of certification is just supposed to give a certificate and not censor.