One of the first things that director Kirti Singh tells us is, "Wherever you go, you acquire stories, but the one that you are born with, that's the story you should be telling." She was speaking about her movie Mamatva which stood first in the Films Under Different Genres Related to Rural Development (fiction) category at the fourth National Film Festival on Rural Development at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR) in Hyderabad. She shot the movie in Tundla, UP, a town just 30 km from Agra, where she grew up and spent 20 years of her life. And that's why she chose to tell this particular story of a lower caste midwife and how things change when her younger sister-in-law gives birth to a baby boy. The 30-minute-long film in Brij (a dialect of Hindi) is essentially about the myths that surround motherhood and a whole lot more. "It's a story of contrasts basically," avers the 33-year-old.
The cinematography for the movie was done by Arun Rushdie, the Executive Producer is Anubhaw Krishna. It was edited by Barnali Bose and Shamik Mukherjee was incharge of sound recording and design
"For any place, its originality is defined by many things and one of them is language, which I relate to the most," says Kirti who is a film graduate from Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata, with a specialisation in Script Writing and Direction. So it was important to her that her actors have a certain command over Brij, the language they were shooting in. She did not want the actors to speak in English when the story is based out of the heartlands. "It just wouldn't be authentic," she asserts. There was also the charm of telling a story that is unheard or untold that comes from a village. "We hear enough about cosmopolitan cities. Stories of villages, which is what really inspires me, need to be told too," she says. When the pre-production work was out of the way and the shooting began, what the director wasn't prepared for was crowd control. One night, she tells us, there were 500 people standing around the location. But with the help of her family, they managed to pull it off. While the writing lasted three to four months, shooting went on for ten days and the post-production work took another four to five months in 2017-2018.
Mamatva has travelled to several festivals like the Dhaka International Film Festival and International Film Festival of India, Goa and has evoked many emotions in the viewers. "It's delightful to see it connecting with all," says Kirti.
Behind the scenes
To reach out to her you can email her at singh.kirti2385@gmail.com
