Breaking new ground: Priyanka Banerjee on her first international project
After receiving recognition for her 2020 thriller Devi, filmmaker Priyanka Banerjee has ventured into international cinema, having directed a segment for an upcoming international anthology project. The filmmaker admits that her first international project has been surreal. ”To have just done this project feels like breaking new ground. I am excited to explore more stories at an international scale,” she says.
The film comprises five segments directed by filmmakers from India, Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil and USA. Banerjee’s segment follows a teenager who locks themself in a bathroom and refuses to come out. She tells us, “I’ve taken the risk to do the film in Bengali — while that limits the audience to those willing to read subtitles, I am confident it adds to the truth of my story.”
Talking about her experience, she shares, “The first challenge was to establish a virtual writers’ room in 2023 where we had to coordinate across time zones and figure out how to work together to have our scripts feel connected.”
Since the film was shot in Johannesburg, South Africa, Banerjee says the filmmakers needed to get creative. “Considering each of our films are steeped in our respective cultures, we had to work with our production designer and director of photography to find a look that felt true to where we came from,” she explains. “As challenging as these things were, they were also the most rewarding. These four filmmakers have become some of my closest friends over the course of this process!” the filmmaker adds.
Banerjee is also going to bat for more inclusion in the film industry: “Film industries around the world are criticised for their under representation of women, especially in technical roles. Sixty percent of our crew was female, which felt apt for a project like this,” she says. “Personally, I do my best to work with people who understand the sensitivity required to shoot such stories. That’s how we can make the industry more diverse and inclusive,” she ends.