Mom

Debut director Ravi Udyawar’s relationship with films goes back to balmy Sunday afternoons spent watching black and white films on Doordarshan.

- Ritupriya Basu

As a child, he felt an undeniable connection to the lens—to all that it shows, and especially to all that it doesn’t. Even when his career took off as an artist and graphic designer, he always knew where his journey was headed. At 24, he filmed the video for Dooba Dooba Rehta Hoon by Silk Route—the love anthem of the aughts. The first ever underwater video to be shot in India, it became Ravi’s claim to fame.

Following stints at Channel V and MTV, Ravi founded his own production house, RU Films, to delve deeper into the art of filmmaking. Now he leaps into the world of celluloid with his debut feature. At the crux of his Sridevi-Nawaz starrer, Mom, lies a relationship which doesn’t wither with time, which stands uncontested as the one bond that single-handedly shapes our lives—the one we share with our mother. What does it mean to mother a child? What does it take to shoulder every adversity to protect your world and hold it all together? Mom asks some very important questions.

What about filmmaking intrigues you the most?

The opportunity to tell a story in my own way. What intrigues me the most is that at one moment there are so many stories in my head, and then there’s that passion to dive into a narrative from my point of view.

From a graphic designer to an ad-filmmaker and now a debut director. What pushed you into the director’s seat for Mom?