I don’t fool my audience: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari

Filmmaker Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s (above) recent release Bareilly Ki Barfi opened to a sweet response at the box office. She says she was sure that she didn’t want her second film to be anywhere close to her debut film Nil Battey Sannata (2015), which had a social message.

“I would lie if I say that I wanted to make another Nil Battey Sannata. I was very conscious that I wanted to make a different film with kind of stories. In Nil Battey Sannata, I had dealt with a subject which had its own aura. But in Bareilly Ki Barfi, there were different kinds of challenges to deal with and serving the same thing twice doesn’t bring up the same tenor,” says Ashwiny.

However, she says that the essence of every film she directs, remains the same. She says, “There was no profound meaning or message at the end of Bareilly Ki Barfi, but the core still remains the same. Here, too, I try to bring out the flaws in human beings and the universal sentiment.”

Ashwiny, who is married to filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari of Dangal fame, always cross checks a few mandates before starting any project. “When I start any script, I make sure that I’m learning something. When I start with the process of filmmaking, I know this is my chance to convey my story to the audience, and I want to be perfect in it. I don’t lie to my characters, to myself and the audience. I do not fool my audience. I have to take my audience to my world,” explains Ashwiny.