Of healing and second chances: Subhadra Mahajan’s debut film set in Kullu valley releases in theatres today

Black and white frames, a woman in pain and a family of caretakers going about their daily grind through sun and snow… Set in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu valley, Subhadra Mahajan’s unhurried, gentle and heartfelt debut film, ‘Second Chance’, captures pain and loneliness, and ultimately offers hope.

After its world premiere in the Proxima competition at Karlovy Vary, the film, which tells the story of a young woman facing an accidental pre-marital pregnancy, has travelled to more than 25 festivals in the past few months, the most notable of those being Busan International Film Festival, AFI Fest, Sao Paulo & International Film Festival of Kerala. It has been released in cinema halls across India today.

In an interview, Mahajan, the writer and director of the film, talks about the challenges she faced, choosing non-actors and releasing it in cinema halls — a dream for anyone who wants to defy Bollywood’s formulaic productions and make a film that truly offers something new.  Excerpts…

 

When and why did you choose to tell the story of Nia?

Nia, like me, belongs to a peculiar class of Indians — young millennials & Gen Z from well-to-do families, who have had all opportunity open to us, which neither our parents nor our grandparents had. The world is our oyster and anything we want is just a tap away on our smartphones. Grand as this may sound, I have experienced and seen several instances where the privilege of endless possibilities has resulted in a lot of confusion and a lot of pressure to excel because what the hell can ever stop us? Within this scenario, ‘business’ is still far superior to ‘art’ and educational and professional goals are centered more around material wealth than internal recourses. Social media has compounded competitiveness in this already stilted atmosphere, urbanisation has resulted in more loneliness. It took me losing more than one close friend to suicide to realise that our generation faces a huge amount of internal emptiness and fragility.

Being a young woman in this generation is all the more confusing – because while we may get ticked into believing that gender equality is on the rise in our traditionally patriarchal setup, this is actually very much on the surface. It just takes one instance, like an accidental pre-marital pregnancy to shatter the illusion and to be left alone to face a brutally nasty society. And it really could be the ‘end of the world’ for this already lost, defeated and traumatised young woman.

This is the reality from where the character of Nia was born, perhaps already broken.

However, I was certain that within this bleak scenario, I wanted to tell a story about healing and giving oneself a ‘Second Chance’.

 

Why did you decide to base it in Kullu?

For a story of healing, there is no better setting than the Kullu Valley. The mighty Pir Panjal range, especially in the winter months, has the unique quality of being spectacularly imposing, yet deeply comforting and meditative. The magnitude of the landscape makes you realise that you are just a tiny speck in an eternal system that functions far beyond your control, helping you make peace with regrets of the past and surrender to the possibilities of what the future might bring. Moreover, the people are exceptionally warm, philosophically wise and have a gentle sense of humour; to accept without judgement a troubled and hurt stranger, lifting her out of her gloom very naturally and nonchalantly.

How much of the film is personal?

Like most first feature films, it is deeply personal. I was born and raised in Himachal Pradesh, spending most of my childhood there. I moved to Mumbai for college and subsequently for work, after which I became a city girl. As a person, I am a combined product of these two very different worlds (urban modern India and the timeless rustic Himalayas)… and ‘Second Chance’ is the story about the meeting of these two very different worlds.

Why did you choose to tell the film in black and white? I feel it intensifies the protagonist’s pain and reflects her state of mind, but what was your thought behind it? What was your brief to your cinematographer?

The story of Nia is that of finding light at the end of a long and dark tunnel. The eastern philosophy, which forms the backbone of the film, is that of finding light in darkness and darkness in light… realising that life is nothing but an interplay of the two. Therefore, I felt this story would be well told in black & white, in the yin-yang of the natural world. The winter season of the Kullu valley, with its towering snow peaks, clear skies, bare branch-ed apple trees and high contrast between light and shadow, makes for a particularly striking and novel visual in monochrome. Later, I also realised the advantage of filming the local characters’ void of colour helped in making them more realistic and relatable rather than ‘specimens’ of a particular tribal culture as they might in full colour.

So from the very beginning, even before I has written a single word of the script, it was always a black & white film for me.

The cinematographer Swapnil Sonawane has been the best possible visualiser of ‘Second Chance’. My brief to him beyond monochrome was to keep it crisp rather than grainy and high in contrast. The only thing we disagreed on was aspect ratio, untimely settling for 1:66 as the perfect frame to balance the power of the landscape and closeness to the characters.

How did you select Dheera, a first-time actor, to play the lead?

For me, Nia was always Dheera Johnson.

I had known her for years and loved her energy, especially her dancing. The first time I saw her on screen was on the YouTube travelogue called ‘Soul Trails’ where she is basically just being herself, but I realised that she’s extremely photogenic and magnetic in front of the camera! ‘Soul Trails’ released around the same time that the initial thoughts for the story that became ‘Second Chance’ were cooking in my head and it just clicked!

She had never acted on camera before so it was a huge risk to cast her as the lead, considering the very internal journey and that she has to carry the entire film.

I conducted a basic audition early on and both me and the casting director and acting coach Dilip Shankar felt confident that she would be able to pull it off. It helped to have her in mind though the various script drafts, and it also helped that she loved the story and related to the character of Nia on so many levels!

Dilip led her into a three-week acting workshop before the shoot, which worked wonders for her range of expressions and understanding how to give me what I needed per scene.

After we shot ‘Second Chance’, Dheera loved the experience of acting for screen so much that she decided to give it a serious shot. On her sheer talent, she won the Richard Boleslawski Scholarship and is now on a Full Time Professional Acting Conservatory at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in Los Angeles. I am sure Dheera is going to be a star one day and I can proudly say I found her!

Like you, filmmaker Gurvinder Singh also casts a lot of non-actors in his films? What is it that non-actors bring to plate that professionals can’t?

I was very certain from the beginning that I wanted a complete cast of non-actors for the film. My biggest inspiration for this has been the new wave of Iranian cinema.

As the second two leads, Bhemi and Sunny, had to be cast from amongst the local community — being acutely accustomed to the local accent and manner of speech, I have no tolerance for even a chance of it sounding fake or ‘put on’. Moreover, the physical appearance and body language of Bhemi —  a woman whose hands are hardened over a lifetime of toil and whose face is lined by decades of harsh mountain sun exposure — is not something that a few hours of makeup can pull off convincingly. And there is no way the usual city-dwelling PS4-wielding child actors of Mumbai and Delhi would do justice to the bundle of raw energy that is Sunny!

Even amongst the secondary actors, the rawness, authenticity and endearing-ness that the non-actor cast has brought to the table has been one of the most talked about and loved aspects of ‘Second Chance’.

Thakri Devi plays a very nuanced and progressive character. Do you feel women in the hills, particularly the older folk, are generally opened-minded? Or would you call this character a good find?

Through my childhood, I spent a lot of time in Chamba and Shimla as well as Kullu, Dharamshala, Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti. I find that the tribal belt has the strongest and most progressive women in the state overall. Bhemi belongs to the upper Kullu Valley where, by and large, women are strong and forward thinking, and also have an evolved sense of humour in spite of the hardships of living in remote and rural mountains. Hence, Bhemi’s character is very realistic and, of course, heavily inspired from the real character of Thakri Devi (who I call Aunty ji) herself. It was a joyful coincidence that she not only fit the bill of the character that I was looking for but, also enhanced it by just being her lovely self.

What kind influences is the film stemming from? Who are the filmmakers you look up to?

There have been two very different schools of inspiration for this film. For the Himalayan local life, I’ve been very inspired by Iranian cinema, in particular the works of Abbas Kiarostami and Majid Majidi, not just for the casting of non-actors but also for the poetry within the mundane, and the finding of light in darkness. The other big influence on me in shaping the character and the world of the imperfect young woman, struggling to come of age, has been the work of Andrea Arnolds, in particular ‘American Honey’ and ‘Fish Tank’.

How have international audiences responded to this story and the fact that Nia was alone during that period of utter pain and helplessness?

A lot of the foreign audiences wanted to know more about abortion laws in India during Q&As. I responded with honesty, saying that India has one of the most forward thinking pro-women abortion laws in the world (the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971, amended in 2021). However, socially and culturally, abortion is still perceived as a huge taboo, stemming from the undeniable facts that we live in a patriarchal society where women are quickly and easily shamed; and that pre-marital sex is still not accepted as reality and hence sex education is sparse. The probably helped them in contextualising the medical mess Nia finds herself in after undergoing an illicit abortion scared, traumatised, shamed and bitterly alone.

How easy was it to find funding for your film? From ideation to the cinema halls, what were the challenges for you?

It was impossible for me to find outside funding for the film as I didn’t have a short film before this. My producer Shyam Bora (Metanormal Motion Pictures) and I tried though various public and private channels, but all in vain. The film was shot on a shoestring budget, which consisted of all my savings, a loan from my father and investment from Swapnil Sonawane, the cinematographer and executive producer of the film (who is also my partner in Latent Pictures) and a huge bunch of favours from family and friends. We were fortunate to find excellent co-producers to take care of the post — Sidharth Meer (Bridge PostWorks) and Naren Chandavarkar (Moonweave Films).

For the festival journey, we have just about scraped through, mainly relaying on fee waivers for our first few submissions. Once our world premiere was set at Karlovy Vary, donations from American citizens via Fiscal Sponsorship of Film Independent (which we had to pass some qualifications for inspite of being a Global Media Makers supported project) saw to our biggest expense — the hiring for publicist Marijana Harder… but that too was only possible after she gave us a big discount because she loved the film. I only travel to festivals that cover my travel and stay expenses so as to keep the expenditure in check.

Diversion World Sales’ boarding has brightened the possibility of possible returns of our investments in the longer run.

However, the most wonderful surprise for me was Shiladitya Bora’s proposal for a limited theatrical release in Indian cites, and his investment for the same through Platoon Distribution… because all the way on my journey, I was told that ‘such films’ cannot even dream of having big screen opportunities in Bollywood-obsessed India. I salute his ‘against the tide’ decision and hope for the best as we move forward!

The film has had a successful showing all over the world. How important is it for you to finally take it to Indian audiences?

I’m quite excited as you can imagine! I’ve seen first-hand at the festivals I’ve travelled to with the film that the story does resonate with the audience, across age, gender and regional divides. However there are certain ‘jokes’ and nuances that are quite particular to India… so it is delightful to see those reactions while screening to a ‘festival’ Indian audience. I can only imagine that amplifying in cinema halls.

I don’t believe in preaching though films, but I do know that ‘Second Chance’ has a gentle message of hope and faith in recovery that perhaps might warm worn souls and bruised hearts.

Most of all, I am very excited and proud to have the rest of India glimpse into a very raw and authentic depiction from the inside of our beautiful Himachal Pradesh, its landscape, people, culture, food, song, philosophy, humour… everything!

While Indian audiences today are far sensitised to the kind of film that you have made, theatrical audiences are still looking for masala entertainers. Do you think they are ready for your film?

To be very honest, I have no idea. Over the past few years, films that were guaranteed to be hits with big stars and all the masala in the world have flopped, while there have been unlikely sleeper hits. I guess we can only wait and watch!

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