I think it’s becoming braver, more personal, more honest. Filmmakers are moving away from spectacle and toward intimacy. And intimacy travels further. Authenticity will always outlive scale.

What inspired you to become a filmmaker, and how did your journey begin?

Cinema was always there, long before I had the language to explain it. As a child, whenever I entered a theatre, something shifted internally. The noise of the world would fade. Time slowed down. I became deeply aware of light, of faces, of silence, of emotions moving quietly through people. It felt sacred. Almost meditative. Without realizing it, I was learning how to observe life — not just watch it.

Over time, cinema stopped being entertainment. It became a way of perceiving reality. A way of understanding memory, behavior, and identity. So becoming a filmmaker never felt like an ambition or a plan. It felt like alignment. Like returning to something that was already wired into me. I didn’t pursue cinema. I simply grew into what was already there.

Can you share the main themes you explore in your films, particularly in “ASMI”?

I’m drawn to fractured identities. People are caught between who they are and who the world expects them to be. ASMI lives in that space — between memory and belonging, between home and exile, between the self we show and the self we hide. I’m less interested in spectacle and more interested in the invisible battles happening inside a person. The quiet loneliness that exists even inside love.

How do you blend poetic emotion with psychological depth in your storytelling?

For me, psychology is the structure and poetry is the breath. Psychology gives the story its bones — motivations, wounds, contradictions. Poetry gives it air — silence, rhythm, space.Life is never purely logical or purely lyrical. It’s both. So I try not to explain emotions. I try to let them exist. Sometimes a look says more than dialogue. Sometimes silence carries the entire scene.

What challenges have you faced in capturing the essence of fractured identities in your work?

Restraint. Pain is easy to dramatize. Truth is quieter. Real fractures live in pauses, in hesitation, in what a person cannot say. So I resist exaggeration. I stay close to the character and let the camera observe gently. I want the audience to discover the wound on their own — not be told where it is.

Could you discuss your collaboration process with artists from India and New York?

I don’t really think about collaboration in terms of geography. For me, it’s always about resonance. Recently, I worked with a singer based in New York on one of my songs. Even though we were in different parts of the world, the creative exchange felt immediate — almost as if distance didn’t exist. It reminded me that emotion travels faster than location. Art doesn’t recognize borders. Different cultures may change texture or sound, but the inner life is universal.

Going forward, I hope to keep working across countries and sensibilities — not to represent places, but to connect human experiences. Because cinema, to me, has never belonged to one region. It belongs to whoever feels it.

How has working with major studios and OTT platforms influenced your creative vision?

They taught me discipline. Constraints have a strange clarity. Budgets, timelines, formats — they force you to focus on what truly matters. You stop decorating. You start distilling. In the end, no platform replaces emotional truth. A single honest close-up of a human face is still more powerful than scale.

In what ways do you think cinema can serve as a space for truth and vulnerability?

Cinema creates a rare space where we can feel without defending ourselves. In daily life, we protect ourselves. In a dark theatre, we don’t. We grieve. We remember. We forgive. For me, cinema isn’tan escape. It’s a gentle confrontation with our own humanity.

What role does the concept of ‘inner storms’ play in your characters and narratives?

I’m fascinated by the weather inside people. Some characters look calm on the surface but are hurricanes internally. Those invisible storms interest me more than external drama. Most of my stories happen inside the heart long before anything happens on screen. That inner turbulence — that’s where the real cinema lives.

How do you approach the writing process, especially when creating dialogue and lyrical composition?

I write visually first — light, space, stillness, almost like photographs. Dialogue comes later. I don’t force lines onto the page. I sit with the emotion first — I feel it, shape it, edit it internally — and only then do I write. Dialogue should feel like the tip of an iceberg. Most of it remains unspoken. Real feelings are simple and fragile. I trust pauses as much as words.

What are some of the key influences or filmmakers that have shaped your style?

I try not to consciously model myself on anyone. Finding a personal voice matters more to me than imitation. But I deeply admire filmmakers who combine strong cinematic language with emotional truth — the human energy of Martin Scorsese, the precision of David Fincher, the poetic intimacy of Wong Kar-wai, and the bold narrative rhythm and dialogue craft of Quentin Tarantino. I see influences as conversations, not templates.

How do you see the landscape of Indian cinema evolving in terms of indie filmmaking?

I think it’s becoming braver, more personal, more honest. Filmmakers are moving away from spectacle and toward intimacy. And intimacy travels further. Authenticity will always outlive scale.

What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers looking to tell authentic stories?

Don’t chase style. Chase truth. Talk about what scares you, what hurts you, what you’ve lived. The more personal a story is, the more universal it becomes. Audiences don’t connect with perfection. They connect with honesty.

Can you share a memorable moment from the production of “ASMI” that impacted you personally?

There wasn’t one single moment. For me, the set itself is the moment. The second I step onto a floor with lights, camera, and silence, something changes in me. My breathing slows down. My focus sharpens. Everything unnecessary disappears. It feels sacred. I’ve never treated cinema like a job. It’s closer to devotion. Even the space between takes mattered — the quiet before “action,” the stillness after “Cut.” That’s where the film is really born. Not in spectacle. In that concentration of breath.

What message do you hope audiences take away from your films?

I don’t want to deliver messages. I want to leave an echo. If someone walks out of the theatre feeling a little more empathetic, a little more aware of their own inner life, then the film has done its work. Cinema, for me, is connection, not conclusions.

Looking ahead, what projects or themes are you excited to explore in your future work?

I’ve never been interested in predefined genres. I prefer discovering forms that grow from the story itself. There’s a never-ending thirst in me to learn, to explore the intricacies of new ideas, new emotional spaces. Repeating myself feels like standing still. So each film has to go deeper. I don’t think of cinema as an ambition. I think of it as a responsibility — to leave something meaningful behind. I want to leave behind films that remain etched into time — work my descendants can one day inherit and feel that someone before them cared enough to do it right. That’s reason enough to keep making films.