We must stop catering only to NRI audiences: Pallavi Joshi
Actor-producer Pallavi Joshi was recently nominated by the Ministry of Information and Brodcasting as a member of Film and Television Institue of India Society (FTII). While the move had been in the offing for a while, Joshi says she was unsure about it. She shares, “I was shooting in Landsdowne with horrible network. The first time I got to know about it was through a newspaper the next day.”
In her new role, Joshi, along with her fellow committee members, aims to create more space and opportunities for creativity to flow freely. She insists FTII graduates have raised the bar high in Indian cinema but acknowledges their decreasing value in the industry. “The focus nowadays is on ‘aapsi bhaichara’. People leave their cities and come to institutions like the National School of Drama and FTII in pursuit of excellence and spend time honing their craft. All they need is someone to give them a platform, but producers have shifted away from brilliance. If we can somehow bring it back and create more opportunities where they cannot be ignored, it will take them to another level.”
As for how the industry can do more, the 54-year-old actor says, “Firstly, we need to start telling Indian stories. In the ‘90s and the 2000s, we were only catering to NRI audiences. That’s got to stop somewhere. We are Indians and we need to tell Indian stories, which are rooted in India, made in India, have Indian cultural sentiments. For that, we need to do castings accordingly.”
Joshi, however, adds that she is very impressed by some recent OTT releases. “And then you see films like Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015) and Badhaai Ho (2018). These are the kind of films that I think should be made. Once we start getting out of the westernised mindset, we will start looking at Indian films and technicians with more respect,” she insists.
Joshi’s nomination falls on the second anniversary of The Kashmir Files (2022). The film was a mammoth success, and won Joshi her third National Award. The actor and her husband, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri also achieved success with The Tashkent Files (2019). When asked if these successes come with responsibiliy, Joshi says, “We felt responsible; hence we made these films. True responsibility lies in being factually correct, wellresearched and presenting the truth to people”