Angry Indian Goddesses is a masala entertainer with a deeper meaning: Pan Nalin

Documentary and feature filmmaker Pan Nalin divides his time between India and Paris. His latest film Angry Indian Goddesses about female bonding, and it opens in India in December has been making waves across the world. In this interview for Firstpost, he talks about his film, working on a topic like female bonding, and about being in Paris during the terror attack. You were in Paris when the terror attack transpired. How did it impact you? The Paris attack totally stunned me. I already have had narrow escape at Trident in Mumbai during the 2008 attack.  The way Paris attack was carried out seemed so similar to that of Mumbai. Add to that it happened at places which I know so well. When terror comes knocking at your doorstep, it’s no longer a news or a Facebook posting. It’s real. Has the terror attack changed your perception? What kind of world are we creating? What is the root cause of terror? Why religions divide us when it suppose to unite us and make our lot better? There are many concerns, which could be a source for great film. I would certainly like to attempt to explore these concerns in a movie. What interest me are humanity’s obsessions with arms and ammunition. The business of creating products that kills. Angry Indian Goddesses(AIG): what makes your goddesses so angry? Each goddess has her own concerns; sometime small, sometime massive; it could be work related, domestic, political, sexual. That creates certain angst among them. That leads to positive anger for change. What made you select the theme of female bonding? A huge percentage of Indian cinema is filmed through male perspectives. Women being so tolerant by nature, rarely protest about this. It’s only while talking to them we realized how seriously they want to see realistic portrayal of girls and girl-bonding. Was this a theme that you nurtured in your heart for some time? I’ve been longing to do a film with firebrand Indian women in lead roles for many years, because shockingly 96% of women-role in Indian cinema is only for decoration. She’s either a lover, or a mother, or sister whose “izzat” the hero or a big bro must protect. Or she is the ultimate item girl. A guy must have a gun and girl but it will always be a guy’s movie. The heroine gets glamour and a song, but still it’s a guy’s movie. Only the man must eat screen time, say the great lines and get the girl in the end. Even the recent lot of all Bollywood buddy movies run high on male testosterone, as if women don’t “buddy” each other at all. How did the eclectic interesting cast Sandhya Mridul, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Amrit Maghera, Rajshri Deshpande and Pavleen Gujral materialize? From the start, I knew that if we go wrong in casting, this film would be a disaster. Thus began a phenomenal task of searching talents. For AIG we had applications from 800 girls from all over India and abroad. My co-writer Subhadra Mahajan prepared a folder that short-listed them from well-known stars to non-professional actresses. We wanted to explore women across all milieus; business, sports, music and so on. We finally selected about 200 potential candidates. You auditioned 200 girls? Maybe audition is not the right word for us. It was a more like “reasoning” sessions where we encouraged talents to open their heart and share their life journey with us over 60 to 90 minutes each. And we are very proud to have discovered talents like Pavleen Gujral, Rajshri Deshpande and Amrit Maghera -all natural, brilliant performers. We are also introducing pop diva Anushka Manchanda in her first lead role in a movie. These four talents will be added to the brilliant Sandhya Mridul and Tannishtha Chatterjee. Then there is Sarah-Jane Dias, who will surprise everyone in her new make-up-less avatar! When these seven women were finally locked and finalised, half the film was made there and then. In a fiercely patriarchal society like ours, can women ever accord the predominance that your film espouses? Human being will never stop evolving, and till there is evolution, there will be change. Our fiercely patriarchal society too will change. If you look closely women have evolved as smarter being that men world over? So that change is already here. AIG advocates that change through entertainment. Some very interesting films about women protagonists like Kahaani and Queen have emerged from India. Your comments on them? That’s a misconception, Kahaani and Queen are good stories turned into interesting cinema. It has nothing to do with women being protagonists. Even if it is true, then after making nearly 30,000 movies in three decades, two-three noticeable movies have emerged where women are leads? Something is wrong somewhere. The gap between Umrao Jaan and Kahaani of 31 years is way too wide. That’s also because in the past movies about women protagonists insisted on women acting like a man. No wonder they flunked! Umrao Jaan, Kahaani, Queen made a serious attempt to show women as women. In any case, we should be concentrating on great stories first, and if that story has a female lead, then let it be. But to start with an idea that lets-make-a-women-centric films would be a disaster. Your film came away triumphant at the Toronto Film Festival. What expectations do you have from Indian audiences as far as the film is concerned? Yes indeed AIG is also getting ready for the release across 50 countries in early 2016. But what I truly and sincerely expect is the Indian janta to embrace the film because I have made this movie first for India and then for the rest of the world. We have insisted that we first want theatrical release in India –on 4th Dec 2015. Whoever has seen the film will tell you that AIG is a masala entertainer with meanings. Indian viewers are going to be entertained; they will smile, laugh and cry. So all we want is people to come and watch the film and react. Do you think films on Indian themes are ready to make a global impact? Not really. Again, when an audience goes to watch a movie they are not going because it has an Indian or Japanese theme. We all go to movies because some sources have indicated to us “hey that’s a good film, go and watch Timbuktu.” We don’t go to see Timbuktu because it is on Malian theme. The world did not embrace Amelie or The Artist because they are French themes. It’s because they are excellent cinematic achievements. We have to make universal movies if we want global impact. And India has ocean of stories with potential to shake the globe! The film has been severely censored in India and would now be viewed by the Revising Committee…why was the censor board so offended by your goddesses? No comment. What are you making next? As a filmmaker I remain open to everything, and certainly to the next Hindi movie. I have been working on a high-voltage action epic Satori; it would be made in Hindi. But it is an expensive film to mount, and it will need a star and big budget. But for now I am busy completing Beyond the Known World, which is spiritual thriller. It is the very first India-New Zealand co-production, and is currently in post-production in the New Zealand.