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Ali Fazal and Richa Chadha are like two peas in a pod. When the pair aren’t filming their respective projects, they’re working on groundbreaking filmmaking initiatives. In a recent chat with ETimes, Richa and Ali were asked if they would be working with an all-female crew on their upcoming production, Girls Will Be Girls.
When asked about the reason for this decision, Ali said: “This particular challenge came out of necessity. As we started our project ‘Girls Will Be Girls’, the film we’re going to shoot in October, we realized that we wanted an all-girl crew as much as we could. Suddenly we looked into the lighting department and realized that there was no one there. I mean, in the last five years, female cinematographers have popped up. We decided to search. There were only a few female gaffers. Otherwise there was nobody. That’s when Tanya, one of our employees, came up with the idea, why can’t we do this?
He added: “Richa can elaborate on this whole program. We made an announcement and about 40-50 girls applied for it. We picked 10. We are very excited. I think this is a starting point for this particular demand. The idea is to stand up for those few who can ultimately stand up for more and create a system where this is normalized. At the moment there are no girls in the Focus, Grip or Light departments. First you have to create a pit to lay the foundation.
Similarly, Richa thought, “Shuchi (director of Girls Will Be Girls) wanted an all-female crew. Because she made a short film with an all-female crew. She said it was easy for her to work on this project. So she said she wanted to do the same in feature film. The thing is, perception has to change.”
Speaking of his own experience, Ali Fazal said: “It’s happening in the West. My film Kandahar was lit by a gaffer. Our producers were women. And that was in Saudi Arabia, where nobody had ever shot before. You know, there were people on our set from 65 countries. Our action team was Bulgarian, the camera team was Spanish. These are geographically diverse people. Men and women were all the same during filming. This is an initial phase in trying to normalize that in our industry.”
Ali and Richa’s upcoming wedding
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Ali and Richa have pushed ahead with their wedding. The actress admitted she wants a big celebration. When asked about her D-Day, Richa said: “This year. We are trying to fix the dates.
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