‘Girls are trendier in small-town India’

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari who made her directorial debut with the muchacclaimed Nil Battey Sannata (2016), is looking forward to her next release, Bareilly Ki Barfi. The trailer just released and has a quirky feel to it. The director says that she was inspired by filmmakers Woody Allen, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Sai Paranjpye, particularly their ability to draw humour from daily life.

“You attend a wedding and you will see so many funny characters. We just don’t notice them. With this film, I wanted to bring this quirkiness out. I wanted the story to be rooted in the subculture of our country,” she says.

The film revolves around a spunky young girl in small town Bareilly and her equations with her family.

Tiwari says that she is attracted to this slice-of-life quality of small town India. “Living in cities, our world is completely different from how the rest of India lives. In the heart of India, things have changed a lot. The girls are trendier, they follow the latest fashion and are much more aware about life.”

The idea for the film, Tiwari says, came from a book that she was reading. She immediately narrated it to her husband, Nitesh Tiwari, who is also the co-writer of the film. “When I told Niteshji, he joked, ‘You just finished a film and you are already thinking about your next.’ He liked the idea and we decided to go ahead.”