Mitu Bhowmick Lange, director of Indian Film Festival of Melbourne talks with Subhash K Jha about producing the brilliant anthology My Melbourne, featuring stories by Onir, Kanir Khan, Rima Das and Imtiaz Ali.
Please tell me about how the project was incepted?
We do the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, which has a very popular Short Film competition. Over the years, we have had wonderful winners from South Asian communities, yet never saw them of their work in the mainstream Australian screen space. Most of them told me about the lack of representation and inability to be authentic in the stories that they wanted to tell. I was discussing this with Onir and we came up with the idea where he would mentor emerging creatives from underrepresented backgrounds and create a short film. I kept thinking of it and felt that it would be so great if we could make a feature film that celebrates the four foundations of diversity – Sexuality, Gender, Disability, and Race.
How were the four directors chosen?
Onir was going to do the film about sexuality. I reached out to Imtiaz, who has been my dearest friend since childhood, and he happily agreed, followed by Kabir Khan, whom I knew would do something really special on the theme of race, and finally to, Rima Das, whose organic style of filmmaking had long admired. Luckily for me, all four of them agreed in a heartbeat, and we were on our way. But then COVID struck…and that delayed the project till 2023, when we shot with Onir and Rima. Kabir and Imtiaz were already busy with their films, so we did their films in early 2024 and had the world premiere of the film at our festival in August 2024.
For a ‘sponsored’ project, My Melbourne exudes an astonishing amount of excellence; was that intentional?
I think My Melbourne has been a blessed project right from the start. When we approached our Screen Agency – Vicscreen, with my vision to make a feature film that is based on diverse, authentic stories with four of India’s most iconic filmmakers with completely different styles who would also mentor diverse emerging creatives from under-represented backgrounds. We had the most inclusive cast and crew, which created a wonderful, mindful energy on set. The music of the film is also very special, including activist/singer Aryana Sayeed singing two of the tracks for the film. We had some of Australia’s best technicians who worked on the film, and everyone supported everyone, and I think all the positivity shows on screen.
How did you select the four stories in the anthology?
We did a call out for writers who wanted to work on this project to submit their concepts. Onir worked with his mentee director and writer to work on the concept of Nandini . Jules’s story was based on this homeless woman below our office. We all know her and sometimes we hear her recite Wordsworth and sometimes cursing the scooties and skateboarders. We have a lot of young, newly married girls who intern in our office, and one day, one of them got abused by the homeless lady under our office. She came up and cried the whole day, and I think she was dealing with a lot of other things which were all coming through. I was narrating this incident to Imtiaz Ali, and he found the connection between these two women who were as different as two people can be, yet both displaced and fascinating, and that’s how the story emerged. Rima’s co-director and writer, Samira, is a young creative living with Usher Syndrome. Usher Syndrome is when one is profoundly deaf and slowly starts losing their vision, which creates a lot of cognitive challenges… Samira always wanted to be a dancer; however, as she grew up, life had other plans. Samira and Rima created this beautiful poetic story, and all our cast, including little Emma, are from the deaf community, who gave the film the authenticity and depth we needed.
I believe Kabir Khan’s story Setara was the hardest to find?
We spent a lot of time looking for the right story for Kabir. Kabir was very clear that he wanted to make something uplifting and not the usual “mera jhootha saaf karo” cliches. While we were struggling, I happened to meet the Afghan women’s cricket team, which had been relocated to Melbourne when the Taliban took over Afghanistan, and they had to escape. It was quite funny because when we all met, the girls had just arrived in Australia. They didn’t speak English, so we were all staring at each other when one of them spotted a picture of Shahrukh Khan and me in our office. And immediately, they came and sat next to me, and we were all best of friends thanks to Shahrukh Khan, who is the best glue between all communities and people. When Kabir heard the first line, he agreed before I could finish my sentence. He met Setera when he came to Australia for the festival and immediately confirmed Setera, who had this spark, and her sister Naz worked with our writer and wrote the story, which was based on Setera finding her sense of belonging in school through cricket.
Were all the directors your first choices, and what was the criteria for their selection?
Yes, and I feel so happy that they all agreed and we have been on this wonderful journey together. I didn’t even think or ask anyone else.
The actors are so natural; they don’t seem to be acting.
We had a long casting process, with casting calls running Australia-wide. For Onir’s story Nandini, Arka Das was our first choice. Onir wanted a vulnerability and depth which Arka had. The moment Jackson walked in with his beautiful sunshine energy we knew we had found our ‘ Chris’. As you would have seen we have been very authentic with the languages as well. Once Arka was cast, we started looking for a traditional Bengali father for him. We could not find anyone when we saw Mouli da at the local Saraswati puja, where he was the priest. Both Onir and I knew we found the father. Finding Sakshi for Jules was harder. We auditioned a lot of wonderful local actors, but the accents would give them away. Finally, we cast Arushi Sharma, and I can’t think of anyone who could have been a more real Sakshi. We were really lucky to have one of Australia’s acting royalty, Kat Stewart, as Jules. For Kabir Khan’s Setara, Rhyana Skye and Setera played themselves, which made the stories come alive. Setera was in the under-15 Afghan girl team, but always wanted to be a cricketer/actor. She worked very hard and did workshops for almost a year before we started filming with her. We were hoping to have an Australian cricketer to play Setter’s coach, and it was really wonderful when Brad Hodge came on board. He was a great sport and attended all the rehearsals with the team and Setera so that everyone would be completely at ease with him. We had a very happy, inclusive crew both on and off screen, which all helped in the final product, I feel.
Anthologies are difficult to release commercially; how will you ensure this admirable product gets the audience it deserves?
The film has been getting a lot of love at all the festivals that it screened at, followed by a wonderful release in Australia and New Zealand. I will forever be grateful to PVR for releasing the film in India in over 20 cities and various locations. We were very keen that the film should be completely accessible and they shared our vision. We released the film with Open captions, a first, so the deaf and hard of hearing community could come and enjoy the film with their friends and families. We had neuro-diverse-friendly screenings along with audio descriptions, and PVR has been very, very supportive of that. The film is due to open at the prestigious 27th UK Asian Film Festival on May 1, followed by some other great festivals around the world. And I really hope we can find a permanent home for the film in one of the popular streamers so the film can reach more people.
Could we look forward to see My Melbourne 2?
Yes, yes. Very happy to report that we have been green-lit for the same. And four of India’s most loved directors have also agreed to come on board. Can’t wait to share the big news soon with you very very soon.
