Berlinale Bloggers 2024
Interview with Nishi Dugar on her film Anaar Daana

A little girl’s first experience with death is the subject of Anaar Daana, a short film screened in the Generation Kplus section of the just concluded Berlinale. Anaar Daana explores why death is such a taboo subject in our society. Debut director Nishi Dugar’s belief in the subject was reinforced when the child actor was at the centre of the film. After a well-received stint at Berlinale, Dugar here talks about how Anaar Daana came about, the camaraderie she found with the audience in Berlin and the beautiful venue her film was screened at - Zoo Palast.

By Prathap Nair

1) What are the origins of Anaar Daana? How did the story come about?
It was a week after my grandmother’s 22nd death anniversary that I couldn’t stop contemplating how I, as a child of 5 years, had processed her passing away. The genesis for writing this short film stemmed from the befuddlement I had experienced due to the lack of explanations from the elders of the house.

I was pursuing cinematography- working as an assistant cinematographer and second unit cinematographer. But making this film felt important- to also explore if I could write or direct films too. I wrote the basic outline based on the incidents of my memory and discussed it with my friends, who later were my crew members. I received a lot of encouragement and learnt the basics of screenplay writing . As a cinematographer my strength is shot design, so I could imagine how Anaar Daana can visually play out as I was writing it. I also knew that the architecture of the space needs to be another important story element.

2) Why did you choose death as the subject of your first short film?
It intrigued me at that point- possibly because I was writing this during the COVID lockdown period and I had an ailing father. Conversations about death became so frequent at my home. I also feel that most people shy away from talking about death. It is either met with silence, or the topics are shifted fast enough in avoidance. Grief is not even talked about in most intimate conversations among adults- let alone children. It is not so much that I chose this subject with deliberation, but I just really wanted to share a pivotal childhood experience through a film. When I was showing Anaar Daana to my friends and colleagues at the picture lock stage, long before Berlinale, most people inadvertently talked about their first memory of loss instead of the film. The conversation would mostly flow to people’s repressed memories of a funeral or experiencing grief.

3) Guddal, played by Veda Agarwal, is such a natural actor. How did you find her and what kind of training did she undergo?
I found Veda Agrawal through a casting director friend Ashish Kumar from Castingwala Company. I shyly discussed my plans to venture into directing a short, and he was extremely forthcoming with collaborating and Veda Agrawal was the first ever audition we took.

When I met Veda, she was just 5! I had also never taken an audition before. But what I wanted in Guddal was energy. So naturally we played hide and seek in Ashish’s studio.
Veda came out to be such a confident, observational kid- and she can really converse with anyone in the room. Later, I auditioned almost 20 girls in that age group in Jaipur but Veda still felt the closest to Guddal than anyone I had met.

I did not want to rehearse too much, kids get bored so easily. In most scenes, I gave Veda key action points- giving kids a task in a shot rather than deliberately emoting.
The most beautiful part about working with Veda was that she would not break character until I would say cut. If you keep rolling, she will continue to build the scene with her own imagination. Veda’s mother did not want to disclose to her that the film is about death. So when we shot the film, we didn’t tell Veda what actually happened in the film.

4) Tell us about your association with the Indian Women Cinematographer’s Collective (IWCC) and whether it helped in any way in Anaar Daana.
I have been a member of the IWCC for the last 3 years. The camaraderie and friendship that women extend is astounding. From helping each other with tech troubleshooting, suggestions on navigating tricky shots, passing on projects and most of all cheering each other!

There are so many women DP’s who also write, direct, produce and sometimes all at once. IWCC has acted as a huge source of inspiration and listening to first-hand stories of people who delve into playing multiple roles in films- Savita Singh, Deepti Gupta, Priyanka Singh, Juhi Sharma are some DP’s who are fantastic directors too. Watching them helped me build a certain confidence to also try out direction.

5) How was your Berlinale and Berlin experience? Tell us about it.
Berlinale has been so wonderfully overwhelming- it was also the first festival we sent Anaar Daana to. I met such fantastic filmmakers and artists. We got to interact, share our work and I found so much commonality from our journeys as artists. Berlinale treats short films as seriously as they do to features- we premiered at one of their most beautiful venues-Zoo Palast. Also, Berlinale, in the Generation section, finds its most honest and sincere audience. Half the audience are kids and they asked such hard questions that would leave us stumped. Anaar Daana is so rooted in its Indian-ness, I thought that the family structures shown in the film will not be relatable to a foreign audience. But I was proven so wrong- we found that so many kids and adults alike resonated with the film’s theme.

For a debut short, the Berlinale experience has given me and all my crew the motivation to continue making films and finding joy in this craft.