OF THOSE LEFT BEHIND
Kislay returns to the Mumbai Film Festival, this time with a film about a progressive widow in a regressive society
—Suhani Singh
In Kislay’s directorial debut, Aise Hee, a husband’s death gives an aged woman a new lease of life. She starts by learning how to stitch. She spends time alone by Yamuna’s ghats. She heads to the beauty parlour. Her neighbours in Allahabad are puzzled by her behaviour and worried about her new friends. “I thought it would be interesting to see the journey of a woman and the reverse journey of a city,” says Kislay, who co-wrote Soni, now streaming on Netflix. Aise Hee, which just premiered at the Busan International Film Festival, will now feature at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival (October 17-24) and compete for the best Indian film prize.
Kislay, who was born in Allahabad, began writing Aise Hee in 2015, soon after he completed his editing course at the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune. This was also a time he was involved in student protests against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as FTII chairman. He would keep tweaking the script till late 2017, as he saw his hometown transform from Allahabad to Prayagraj.
“We wrote it was a smart city even before it was one. I used to joke that I will put down something today, and you’ll see that happening down the line,” says Kislay, who found a producer in his Kirori Mal College friend Shwetaab Singh. Apart from its portrait of a widow, the film also examines how a nuclear family falls apart. Looking at manifestations of toxic masculinity, its gaze can be hard-hitting and sympathetic.
Inspired by a Bertolt Brecht story, the film, he added, is an attempt to “explore how society has radically changed in the past decade. What is there in our culture which makes it so malleable?” This questioning is relevant for the young writer-director, who says he particularly identifies with filmmakers such as Jia Zhangke (Chinese), Michael Haneke (Austrian) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkish). “Film can ask difficult questions, like a novel does,” he says. “You do feel the mainstream industry can do more.” ■
Kislay tweaked the script over two years, as his hometown Allahabad transformed to Prayagraj