Payal Kapadia: There's a bit of me in all the characters

Payal: I think it was all together. I had a few scenes in my mind that I was keen on. Like the hallucinating old lady in the hospital and ending with the fable. These were the pieces that I had in mind, but also the characters of two very different women, who have come to Mumbai, away from their families. What we learn from Western feminism is that you can earn money and become independent because you're financially liberated. But in India, and in all of Asia, that's not the case. There are a lot of other complexities to it. These were the ideas in my mind. And I was also interested in two different women, almost different generations, living together, and what that brings [to the story].

Payal: We were thinking about these two different feelings of time. The first part of the film takes place over many days. And the second part is just one long day. So, I was interested in experimenting with it. In cinema you can feel time differently. It's a thing that is unique to music and cinema, something that I was very drawn to, to try out.

Also, when you're working a lot, and you don't get much time off. In Mumbai even if you get a day off, you end up doing your chores. So, there's no real sense of having a moment. On taking a trip somewhere, to get away for one day, you really start thinking about your life, it gives you a little bit of time for it. So, this trip [that the three women are on], which is not driven by a very nice reason to take off, becomes like a space where you also start thinking about things a bit differently, away from your daily life.

Ranabir: I think for many filmmakers, the politics comes first and then the cinematic form. I think our journey started more with the cinematic form. And through that, we started to learn a little bit more about things around us.

Payal: We are both cinephiles and we love to watch films. We have been obsessed with cinema itself, watching a lot of things and the possibilities that cinema gives you in terms of formalistically trying out things. In terms of politics, it's about what kind of society we live in. As artists we are always reflecting on that and on ourselves. That way some questions that I have about my own limitations are there in the film too.

Payal: I think a lot of films that we really like are such. A film like [Nagraj Manjule’s] Fandry is extremely political. But it's a very human story. It's something that everyone can relate to. If there is a sense of didacticism in a film, I personally feel a little detached from it. But if the filmmaker is really talking about something which is very human and empathetic, then I connect to it immediately, on a very emotional level, and then I start to understand what politics is. If you see a film by Rima Das, there are so many layers in her work. But, at the end of the day, it's also a story that anybody can relate to.

Payal: I hope so. This film is about accepting each other, despite one's differences. And that is something that I have been thinking a lot about as I grow older. The kind of judgments that I had made about people, I'm beginning to question myself about them. I think that's what is coming through. There's a bit of me in all the characters.

Payal: I think both of us really enjoy the freedom that nonfiction gives us. To just be able to have a small camera and shoot without a lot of expectations that you're going to get something out of it. In fiction, because the time is less and there's a lot of money and people involved you must make it, come what may. I like a little bit more trial and error.

Ranabir: I think that this form allowed us to put the city a little bit more in the forefront in the beginning and through other characters come to our characters in a way that it becomes a story about a lot of people.

Payal: Then it’s not just about a specific case, but anybody else you might meet in the Ladies Compartment of a Mumbai local.

Payal: The one with Viktor Banerjee? He's acting in it right? Yeah, I remember, it was a fever dream.

In our case I was thinking a lot about it being a contemporary folktale, there’s a fable-like quality where the second part is not very realistic. Like in our folktales where we can have a man suddenly turn into a tree or a ghost. I was thinking about the cooker [that Nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) gets] as an object. Almost like a genie, she manifests the stranger [through it].

The restrictions that she has put on herself is very internalized patriarchy. It’s how she has been programmed. So, to deal with it she only needs to manifest it. She needs to literally say this to her own inner demon who is this stranger/husband. She married somebody but they were not close and didn't live together for long enough. So, he was a stranger to her. I thought that this would be a nice way for her to be with her own inner demons.

My thought was also that a lot of times, female friendships are marred by the internalized patriarchy that pits us against each other. It has nothing to do with us, but we are conditioned to feel a certain way about somebody else's way of life: that person shouldn’t have it because we didn't have it. I see myself also sometimes reacting in ways that I think are strange. Prabha must spit it out to be able to accept her friend Anu (Divya Prabha).

Payal: It was something that we really discussed and thought about a lot. It was very collaborative. We had an intimacy coordinator on set which was fantastic. Naina Bhan is also an actress; she's acted in this Netflix series, Ashim Ahluwalia’s Class. We had discussions with her about how we felt about it, and that whatever was going on in the characters’ minds at that time will decide the shot- taking. It’s about Anu experiencing something and her feelings are more important than anything else. So, through these discussions then, it became very clear what we needed to shoot, and how. My editor, Clement Pinteaux, is also very sensitive. There's a gentleness in terms of how he likes to work. I think there is a lot of him also in how the scenes have turned out.

Ranabir: Well, I don't know about the flip side, but it is enabling in the sense that in India, right now, we don't have public funds to make movies with. Some states, like Kerala, have their own funds. The only way that independent films can happen is through private funding, and you don't always have complete control over what you're doing. In that sense, if you do find somebody to work with, who you get along with, and when they share the same ideas, I think that is definitely a good way to make a film. But, at the same time, in some ways, that means that you will have to at least know English well, and you will have to have some idea of a Western way of life, even to reach that point and make that coproduction work.

Payal: That means a lot of it is very limiting. There are a lot of people who can't get access to it. But now with student exchanges a lot of people from FTII (Film and Television Institute of India, Pune) also have gotten opportunities of working with co-productions abroad.

I wish that there was a way so that more people could access the co-production system, because language becomes a barrier. We need to even have good Indian producers who can do the co-productions.

I've also realized now working with Thomas Hakim and petit chaos is that there's a lot of creativity involved in production. We watch similar films; he is very understanding of the ideas that I have. There’s a lot of back and forth. I take his opinion very seriously. And it's a nice way to work. So, the idea that a producer just brings in the money for me changed after meeting them. And it became like a very enriching process.

There is no code. The thing is people don't see that it didn't happen very quickly. You must be patient. Like we did three residencies, two labs. It's a process and it’s all about whether you want to give into that process or not. Sometimes in India also there are people now putting money in films. And if you're getting some freedom to do that, then good to do that also, but I love structure. I like to have somebody to submit something to. I'm like a schoolgirl. It depends on who you are, the kind of personality you are. We are self-employed, there's nobody sitting on my head to say that you must do it. I could just completely get waylaid and not do anything, but Thomas would be insistent—we have a deadline, you better finish this draft.

Thomas: To be honest, for me, it was never to work with India in particular, it was to work with Payal as a filmmaker and me as a producer. She is a director I really wanted to work with when I discovered her short and then it was about making it happen with the means we have and, of course, in France and in Europe, we have all this public funding.

Payal: I like to work with a lot of different languages because I don't feel rooted anywhere. I feel like I'm a little bit of this and that. I've lived a little there, a little here. My friends come from everywhere. And I admire a lot of films from Kerala. They're also the ones who show my films the most.

Payal: Lots of interesting things are happening around India. I'm also thrilled about Dominique Sangma’s Rapture releasing in France. He is a great filmmaker. Also, these films are from different regions. Meghalaya, Ladakh, Karnataka. Mine is in Malayalam, Hindi and Marathi. 30 years ago the film in competition here was also in Malayalam. That’s what state support does.

Payal: If only it’s autonomous then yes.