IAWRT inspires: Woman Filmmaker at Film Festival

By Shreya Dattatraya Chougule

At the 18^th Asian Women's Film Festival, upcoming filmmaker Eshwarya Grover spoke about how IAWRT “as a festival is a safe place for her to discuss issues she couldn’t anywhere else,” as she spoke about her film “May”.

Grover's “May” looks back at memories of her childhood. “I was just trying to look back at my memories and construct it into a film. I thought maybe I should write on my childhood as the only thing I could think about during the lockdown was my late grandparents as I stayed at my ancestral home,” she said describing the process behind selecting the theme.

“I had to look for what I wanted to talk about, what was my voice. My previous film ‘Memoirs of Saira and Salim’ was set during the 2002 riots. May is completely different from that,” Grover said regarding experimenting across themes.

She put forward her learning experiences at the film festival after her student film got selected to be screened in the ‘Webs We Weave’ segment on the second day of the festival. “With every screening we see how people perceive films or add their experiences to make it better. When I see filmmakers here understand the vision I had with the film, it feels great.”

“The women filmmakers, particularly at this festival, have such strong voices. This is very inspiring for young filmmakers,” said Grover appreciating the work of women in cinema. She also addressed gender bias and talked about the imbalanced ratio of women filmmaking students. “There is a gender bias. Filmmakers here are overcoming barriers.”

She drew contrast between women-empowered film festivals and society as a whole as she spoke about the platform IAWRT provided. “This is my second time at the fest. My first time with the festival was with the film Memoirs of Saira and Salim. It talks about the controversial topic of 2002 riots. The festival however was a safe place to talk about the film openly.”

Grover discussed how the industry may change overtime with experienced women filmmakers giving their best to bring in the best opportunities for women.

Bennett University’s Times School of Media is a key partner in the 18^th IAWRT Asian Film Festival. Its students are playing an important role as volunteers and rapporteurs.

(The writer is a Semester II student of BA (Journalism and Mass Communication) programme.)