The couple’s first project is actress Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal as producers of the coming-of-age story Girls Will Be Girls. The two actors, who have been working together on the Fukrey series, will take the project through their new banner Pushing Buttons Studios. Filmmaker Debutante Shuchi Talati will direct the film from her own script.
Set in an elite boarding school in a small Himalayan mountain village, the story is about 16-year-old Mira, a rebellious old man taken over by her mother who never came of age. . Mother and daughter grow up together through the course of the script and their beautiful relationship but in the end it is the lively heart of the film.
Girls Will Be Girls is the only Indian script to be invited to the acclaimed Berlinale Writing Station 2021, a lab that selects 10 projects from around the world each year, according to the makers. It is also the only Indian project at the Jerusalem Script Lab this year where it will be formally screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival in July, they said.
Lauding Talati, Chadha, said that the cinematic world created by the filmmaker in Girls Will Be Girls is “revitalizing, often cruel but hopeless or nihilistic”.
“It’s really honest to make fun of you, not to get upset. It’s full of repetitive, live events that are something you enjoy – like zit popping. The mother in our story regularly echoes the self-sacrificing stereotype of a typical Indian mother – she is complex, gray, and not martyred, ”the 34-year-old actress said in a statement. “The transition between mother and daughter is studied so much in Indian and global cinema that the capabilities of Girls Will Be Girls gifts are very exciting,” she said.
Fazal, who is also 34, said the film is close to their hearts as it marks their first production tour. “I am also delighted that our studio will be entering the market with such an innovative, women-led story. We hope to be able to tell thoughtful and universal stories with humor and love, ”he said.
Talati is an advanced filmmaker, based in the US. She recently won a New York State Arts Council Grant for the script of Girls Will Be Girls. She was also selected for Berlinale Talents.
The film will be co-produced with Sanjay Gulati of Crawling Angel Films and Claire Chassagne of the French flagship Dolce Vita Film.
Chadha and Talati have been long-term collaborators as they previously co-directed a documentary program about adults living with autism and Down’s syndrome when they were students at Sophia College in Mumbai.
“I think Shuchi is an amazing voice and I have been following her evolution for years, knowing that one day she would give birth to an incandescent film from her brain. She’s definitely a filmmaker you’ll keep an eye on, ”said Chadha.