Today's filmmakers are fearless: Ashwini Iyer

Ashwini Iyer's debut film, whose debut film "Nil Battey Sannata" is getting a lot of critical acclaim, feels realistic filmmakers are finally getting a chance as audience is now responding well to such stories.
"Nil Battey Sannata", starring Swara Bhaskar and Ratna Pathak Shah, has hit the right chord with the viewers with its inspiring story of a maid taking up education to encourage her daughter to study.
Ashwini has received praise for the unconventional portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship but the director says she drew this aspect from day-to-day conversations between parents and their children.
"The portrayal of parent-child relationship is changing in films now. It is no more how we are supposed to show and that is because young writers and filmmakers are fearless. They are coming up with the stories which they feel are needed to be told without worrying about what could be the dynamics of it," Ashwini told PTI.

The director finds the current time best for Indian cinema, with audience for simple, realistic stories getting bigger.
"Audiences are changing, they know what stories and good films are. They will not accept if you show them something, which happened 10 years ago. They are accepting such movies because that is what happens in their families. They never differentiated between commercial and parallel cinema. We did it.

"Now that we are blurring the difference, they are going for all kind of movies. That's why films like 'Masaan', 'Piku' have got so much love or the way people are waiting for 'Udta Punjab'. The kind of reception its trailer has got, this wouldn't have been possible a few years ago."

Ashwini, who makes her directorial debut with the Aanand L Rai production, says the story of "Nil Battey Sannata" is relevant as well as inspiring.
"The story is there in every family irrespective of which strata of society you belong to. A lot of parents would have wanted to study more but could not because of circumstances. If this woman (in the film) wants to bring change in her life, she sets an example for a whole lot of women and men in the country," Ashwini said.
She is hopeful that the story will make many men and women in the country follow their dreams regardless of their age.

"I have been reading these stories of how a father takes up a law exam with his son, a woman after fulfilling her duties goes for graduation. The inner desire has always been this but as a society we never talk about this. It will inspire a lot of men and women in the country to go out and pursue their dreams," she said.