EXCLUSIVE Interview! Kiran Rao on ‘Laapataa Ladies’: ‘An evolved audience is great for a filmmaker…’ | Not Just Bollywood

For Firstpost’s ‘Not Just Bollywood’, Kiran Rao talks about her film ‘Laapataa Ladies’ and how it is a great time for filmmakers are essentially story-tellers.

‘ _Laapataa Ladies_’ was first shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. Kiran Rao believes that the audience is changing and is great for the filmmakers. Now content from around the world is at your fingertips and that honestly is a brilliant change and as a filmmaker you are not just competing with the Hindi film industry, but globally. When you have an evolved audience, it is easy to find your kind of audience.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

 Keeping it engaging yet not getting preachy, how did you manage to balance the content of the film?

It was important for us to keep the balance of entertainment, humour as well as some thoughts that we wanted to touch upon. We put ourselves through strict test when we were writing it. First we concentrated on characters and plots and any messaging that we wanted to do through the film we kept it as a subtext. The same method we applied while editing the film. Actually, I cut the film down a lot on the edit table. The balance was very important for me both humour and emotion.

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Your last film was released 13 years ago. You are coming to direction after such a long time. How much has the landscape of cinema changed?

As a technological medium it has changed a lot. There are new formats, platforms and new ways to view. There are a lot of anthologies also that are being made. So, in that sense the landscape for filmmakers has changed and where we put our film out has changed. Now we have YouTube where you can show your films on. But now the platforms have changed. Also the cinema going habit has changed a lot. Cinema on your palm is a new thing now.

I think what has not changed is that audiences want a good story that they will be entertained by or provoked by. That’s exactly what filmmakers are trying to do- tell a story through a thriller or a comedy. Luckily we as humans our instincts and desire to be collectively involved in this story telling medium has not changed.

Do you think the evolving of audiences in cinema has made it a great time for filmmakers?

The audiences are now watching Korean dramas, Turkish historical shows and every kind of Hollywood film. It’s an audience that is eclectic. This is a good change for us and thanks to the proliferation of OTT channels.

Earlier as an audience we had to take what we were given, but that is not the scene anymore. Now they can choose which is great. An evolved audience is great for a filmmaker because that way you will always find your audience.

On deciding upon this quirky location and the funny dialogues in your film _Laapataa Ladies_, do you think comedy has the potential to change our mind?

 I am hoping that it will impress people in a subtle and emotional way. The best thing about comedy is that there is a lot that can be said in subtext and in a subtle way.

The location and the names of the station came from the script. When we got the story from Biplab Goswami, it was called ‘Two Brides’ then. It was set in a village. When we kind of made the character Manohar, played by Ravi Kishan. Then the police station also becomes an important location. Other than that we wanted to show rural, central India. There are many kinds of villages in India and looking for those interesting locations was challenging. We needed to find something that was set 20 years ago and didn’t have concrete houses and mobile phone towers.

WATCH the trailer of Laapataa Ladies here: