Shuchi Talati: ​‘I grew up in a con­text where there was so much shame around female sexuality’

Shuchi Talati is the writer/​director of the Sun­dance award-win­ning fea­ture, Girls Will Be Girls, which sees Type A teenag­er, Mira, ques­tion­ing her devo­tion to being a good girl when a dash­ing young stu­dent arrives at her board­ing school. This fem­i­nist com­ing-of-age tale also sees Mira’s young moth­er hav­ing a par­al­lel awak­en­ing that threat­ens to destroy their already frag­ile bond.

LWLies: Do you see your work as political?

Talati: It’s deeply polit­i­cal. I grew up in a con­text where there was so much shame around female sex­u­al­i­ty. As a teenag­er when I had a boyfriend, I did not tell my best friend because I thought she would judge me. So with­in that con­text, I want­ed to tell a sex­u­al awak­en­ing sto­ry where I reflect on the con­text, but don’t shame her.

What drew you to set the sto­ry at the base of the Himalayas?

Well, pri­mar­i­ly because that’s where all the board­ing schools are, this one we shot in Mus­soorie, a town that prob­a­bly has a hun­dred board­ing schools. I didn’t go to a board­ing school but I was real­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by them. Enid Bly­ton is very pop­u­lar in India, and I exclu­sive­ly read Enid Bly­ton until I was 10, and read ​‘St Clare’s’ and ​‘Mal­o­ry Tow­ers’ which are both about board­ing schools. And I also decid­ed not to do the hus­tle and bus­tle and take our cues from the blue vast­ness of the mountains.

The film even­tu­al­ly nar­rows its focus onto the human sto­ry. Was it ever tempt­ing to make it about those incred­i­ble landscapes? 

At the begin­ning Mira feels on top of the world – she becomes the head pre­fect in the very first scene, and so for that I very much want­ed to be on a moun­tain­top. It’s real­ly like a ves­tige of pow­er that’s slow­ly chipped away, and the school becomes less safe and the home, which is her mother’s space, becomes more safe. She starts to spend more time there and it became a much more inte­ri­or film.

You shot on dig­i­tal, what oth­er choic­es did you make to get the look?

Well one was aspect ratio, the taller, 4:3 grain allowed for a lot of head­room and for us to some­times make Mira small, and sit­u­ate her in this world that real­ly con­stricts her move­ments. And then some­times we would col­lapse it and go so close to her that you feel like you can almost hear her thoughts. The light­ing some­times had this hard­ness – it can feel so harsh up in the Himalayas, even in the foothills. We used it to height­en the emo­tion­al con­flict and make the frame have more con­trast. And then real­ly just a lot of still­ness. We searched for months to find the house where much of the film takes place, because it was real­ly impor­tant to have sight-lines from one room to the oth­er, so that we could block it in a way that when the moth­er, daugh­ter and boy are all togeth­er, we can real­ly see who’s on the ins, who is on the outs, who can see what, who can’t see what.

What was your approach to the scenes of intimacy?

Trans­paren­cy from the begin­ning. Even before the actors met me, I want­ed them to read the full script and know what was required so they could ask ques­tions. To me inti­ma­cy scenes are an emo­tion­al exchange. Yes, you’re phys­i­cal­ly vul­ner­a­ble and naked, but you’re also emo­tion­al­ly vul­ner­a­ble. The chore­og­ra­phy was mapped out. I feel like those con­ver­sa­tions need­ed to hap­pen when it was real­ly safe to say no. Even though I acknowl­edge there is a pow­er dynam­ic – I’m the direc­tor and they’re young actors who want to please me – it’s much hard­er to say no on a set, where you feel like every­one is wait­ing. We tried to get as many women on set as pos­si­ble, as many of them heads of depart­ments. It’s just such a male indus­try, espe­cial­ly in India, so it was a long hir­ing process. We did do a closed set to make the actors feel like they were in a cocoon where they could do that kind of work and the two actors are very love­ly with each other.

Have there been any reac­tions to the film that have sur­prised you?

Because it is such a qui­et film, you hope that the audi­ence will get it and go along for the ride. So to hear a chuck­le or a gasp at a ges­ture in a room full of peo­ple, it felt that peo­ple were with the film every step of the way. I think that was such a relief and very sat­is­fy­ing. The oth­er thing has been lots of young women, a lot of the time emo­tion­al, who are so thank­ful for the film and feel so seen.