THE FRIENDS WE NEED

There are now enough web shows about female friendships for them to be a radical, subversive genre unto themselves

- Suhani Singh

Back in 2020, when producer Rangita Nandy called ad filmmaker Joyeeta Patpatia to helm season three of Four More Shots Please! (FMSP), Patpatia admitted that she hadn't seen the series. But so popular was FMSP, she knew enough to join some dots. As Patpatia began her monthlong preparation-watching 20 episodes, each lasting at least 30 minutes-she empathised with the Mumbai-based female quartet of Damini (Sayani Gupta), Siddhi (Maanvi Gagroo), Umang (Bani) and Anjana (Kirti Kulhari). It helped that she is part of a quartet herself. "When the show dropped, there was a gap in content that celebrates female friendship. We had seen a lot of movies, but most of them were male-led or seen from the gaze of a man," says Patpatia. "For the first time, we were seeing the mindset of urban, independent and progressive women."