Working with women made my film better: Varsha Bharath

Navigating a male-centric industry, the 'Bad Girl' director says the crew's energy changes when there are more women on it

- Shephali Bhatt

Varsha Bharath, Vetrimaaran's longtime assistant director, debuted with Bad Girl, an intimate character study from action hero-obsessed Tamil cinema.

Bharath's coming-of-age story follows Ramya, played by Anjali Sivaraman, a young woman navigating strict family expectations and societal norms in her search for love and autonomy. Produced by Vetrimaaran and Anurag Kashyap, the film premiered at Rotterdam in February, releasing theatrically on 5 September in India. While it got the best Asian film award at the Rotterdam film festival, Bad Girl sparked controversy in home state over accusations of negative portrayals of Brahmins, escalating to the Madras high court ordering the teaser's removal in July.

Lounge caught a private screening of the Hindi dub days before release and met Bharath, 34, in Mumbai shortly after. Edited excerpts from the interview.

You said during a private screening how men have been making bad movies for over a century, so if people think that your movie is bad, you don't mind, you still want them to watch it. It felt like you were allowing yourself the freedom to fail.

Ever since I was an AD, there was always this need to be better than all the boys. In 2011, when I started out, there weren't a lot of women.

I see that pattern among many women, this fear of being bad... Across professions, women do carry this little bit of self-doubt: "I need to be good, I need to earn this." Whereas men just take it for granted that they can tell stories, whether good or bad. When there's a woman winning an award in cinema, suddenly everyone talks about whether she deserves it or whether she's got it because she's a woman. We often do not ask these questions about men. Because institutions built by men, for men, are assumed worthy by default.

So, were you able to release yourself from that pressure while making the film?