Actor Anushka Sharma is riding high with two back to back successes with Paatal Lok and Bulbbul as a producer. With Bulbbul particularly, Anushka and her brother Karnesh Sharma, again experimented with the supernatural genre. Interestingly, this is their third project that’s exploring this style of filmmaking after Phillauri and Pari and merits prodding into exploring the reason for such bold creative decisions.
Ask Anushka if she finds herself attracted to stories about the supernatural, ghosts and spirits because she has created a sub-genre of the feminist supernatural in India, she says, “One should see a film for the story that it is and for what it is trying to say and engage more deeply with stories. We have never tried to create a film specific to a genre. We have never ever discussed things like – let’s do a horror film right now. We have always seen stories.”
The actor adds, “For us, Pari was not a horror film. It was a film about how a human being can be so demonic and a demon can still be more humane. For us, that was the beauty of it as a film. For us, Bulbbul is a story about a girl finding her strength in an unfamiliar world. For us, Phillauri was about love and longing. It was never about genres or we never thought about the supernatural element of it. Because of the characters we had to lend that treatment to it.”
Anushka, who became the youngest woman producer of the country at the age of 25, says she likes to chase and find the best stories for Clean Slate Filmz and also wants to be a part of the best projects as an actor.
“For us it will always remain about the stories. We want to produce the best projects and find the best stories. Hopefully after a point maybe when people see the kind of work we are doing, they will stop asking questions on whether we love a particular genre or not and see us for what we are trying to do,” she says.