It’s is a young-adult murder-competition series, the story of a grieving sister willing to go to any lengths to find out what happened to her twin. At its core is the theme of intense sense of competition where our youth is constantly pit against each other. There is almost a sense of scarcity in this world, there's never enough for us all, where you must fight through, win and succeed at any cost. It is an exploration of what this need to succeed does to young minds, friendships, relationships, and one’s sense of self.

I mean, it is the third installment of SOTY. It's set in the same St. Teresa's Heritage School, shot on the same locations. It has certain characters expected out of the franchise. It's like you woke up in an alternate reality version of that world. That's really what we were going for. Those are the challenges when you are reimagining an existing franchise.

With the kind of young population we have, we don't make a proportionate amount of YA content. There's something unique about the feeling of youth, which is true to this generation, but has also been true to other generations. It’s that coming-of-age time period in life, which has a different sense of self discovery, angst, grit and passion. That emotion is something that we are trying to weave into this narrative. 

It's a satirical view of the tropes we have seen built about them — the trustee’s son, the bubble-gummy best friend. This series is about what else can you do with all these commercial tropes.

Shanaya is absolutely a director's actor. She really surrenders to your vision, be it emotionally, physically, or related to character graph or prep. It's a lot of intense emotionality that you have to exist in for a sustained period of time, given we were shooting over a long period. It's supposed to be very raw and fresh. Not just her, but all my actors, they just became those characters. There was no time to catch off. You have to fully get in the zone and push yourself.

My filmmaking style has been more independent-centric. Here, my choice was — do I continue being in my comfort zone or challenge myself to foray into something unfamiliar? It's been a great learning experience to understand what commercial cinema means, what is the right balance of relatability, accessibility and uniqueness. What do you retain, provide a twist on and present a new perspective as you reimagine an existing franchise?

All you can do is go in with complete earnestness. This is my rendition of what I think is an emotionally intense, angsty YA show with mixed media elements.

Honestly, it depends on what your intention with that piece is. You find different ways to say the things you care about.  Counterfeit Kunkoo (2018) talked about marital abuse, and housing discrimination for a character that just managed to escape an abusive marriage. Nocturnal Burger (2023) talked about child sexual abuse and systemic inadequacies that we experience when dealing with a case like that.

At the same time, I've directed the ‘Baazigar’ music video for Divine, which was hip hop and action. In the music video for Ritwiz is a gender relationship between a single mother and her son, who navigate emotional conflicts of life as a support system for each other. I've directed ‘Proper Lady’ for Puma, which is high-gloss fun sports film, but also talks about a woman’s need to free oneself from the expectations of being a proper lady. Social commentary doesn't have to stick to the traditional expectation of it, like you're preachy and boring — if you can raise a question, state a solution, provide emotional resonance, and give a sense of relatability, as long as it makes the audience turn their head a bit in your direction, that's good. What is non-negotiable is the audience’s need to enjoy whatever they are watching. You cannot offset the entertainment factor by saying that it is social commentary.

By the time I was 12, I knew I wanted to be a writer-director, but no one around me had anything to do with industry. So it was my mom and me, looking through classified articles for filmmaking workshops. That was the only way one could learn, since this was before Internet was a thing. I knew I wanted to tell stories, tell them my way, and I feel blessed to be able to actually do that. So much of my life has been an education in filmmaking, and that's the short version of the journey. 

I didn't watch a lot of films as a kid. Life was hectic and there wasn't scope for recreation. When I went to University of Westminster, and studied Contemporary Media Practice for three years, not only did it help me explore world cinema, but also helped me go within and understand what is unique about my voice. My entire practice has been about not emulating the masters. 

Europe is already doing that. There's a festival called Clermont-Ferrand in France, a short film festival. There's Tokyo Shorts in Japan. France has a lot of distribution organizations that are only short film-focused; they genuinely care about it as a medium.

Can it happen here? Absolutely. What does it take? An ecosystem built around it. Filmmaking is an expensive medium, and you require expensive technology. You can only sustain any industry if it’s financially viable for makers. The more distribution opportunities we create to recuperate the investment, the more short films become a form in itself. Otherwise, it remains a proof of concept. 

Absolutely never. The point I wanted to make has been made in 28 minutes — anything more will be a stretch. Short films or any medium come with their own uniqueness. When you write a short or a series, you write for that canvas and duration, approaching it with a different craft than for a feature. A short film allows you to do something that a series may not, and vice-versa.  So I want us to enjoy that, and not think of a short film as a shorter version of something bigger. 

The context of cinema has been changing constantly, and will always change with time. The medium and the audience dictates the craft. Also, it's unfair to say our current generation's attention spans are bad. All of us have experienced that. Even when you're watching a film, you don’t realize subconsciously when you reach for your phone.

Attention economy is the reality of the times we live in. Instead of being dismissive about it, we should acknowledge that and create with that in mind. If I can't hold my audience's attention, that's my fault as a filmmaker. I must care about my audience.