Apoorva Charan is a Hollywood-based Global Indian film producer with a series of short film credits under her belt. Her debut feature film, ‘Joyland’, hit UK cinemas recently and is all set for its India release later this month.
In this interview with iGlobal, the India-born talented young filmmaker reflects upon ‘Joyland’s’ incredible journey since the Cannes Film Festival’s coveted Un Certain Regard jury prize last year, the universal subject matter at the heart of the film set within a South Asian milieu and her dreams for her new production company “all caps”.
How do you feel as ‘Joyland’ releases in the UK and India?
I'm excited because we're very, very eager to share the film with audiences worldwide. There's such a large, vibrant South Asian community in the UK and we're excited to share the film with them and beyond. Everyone's been responding to the film really well, which is really heartening.
In India, we are releasing through PVR and it will be in theatres there in March too.
How was the whole Cannes Film Festival experience?
Cannes was so wonderful. It was so thrilling and gave us a really strong launching platform. We're a small independently made film but our team has been our strength. And so, we had 40 people from the team at Cannes.
As it was first time a film by a Pakistani director [Saim Sadiq] was playing at the festival and you had the whole team there with that kind of strength and energy, it was hard for anyone to dismiss us. I think it really made people pay attention because we showed up as such a team.
What, in your view, makes this film set in South Asia resonate universally?
I think what the characters want is so simple and so easy to relate to. I very strongly felt that this is a story people should get to watch because it is so beautiful. And the cultural specificity just adds layers and layers of richness and visual texture that you can't get anywhere else.
After this feature debut as a producer, what’s next for your company ‘all caps’?
I think my vision as a producer is always going to be to bring fresh narratives with a global perspective that hopefully engage and move audiences. I think that's the only goal – to just tell good stories.
We're working on so many projects. There’s one that I'm very excited about that is set in Brazil, which also has a first-time feature director – a very, very talented director. So, that's something that I'm really excited about.
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