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CANADA Newsline SEPTEMBER 25, 2026 | The Indian Eye 35

Q: How did you approach the ac- things. Nothing changed my mind as take, from concept to completion? me, much less actually experiencing it.
tion without allowing the spectacle to much as it clarified certain things. It Richie Mehta: They approached Its incomprehensible to me, especially
overwhelm Phoolan’s humanity? She’s shed light on certain aspects because me in 2019, and here we are. for such a young girl.
surrounded by thousands of armed men. she would describe things from her Obviously, in the middle of that, I To have absorbed all of that - ab-
Richie Mehta: It’s all about point point of view, and then sometimes went and did the series Poacher. But sorbed, absorbed, absorbed - after a
of view and perspective. you would get information from peo- my brother and I were working on this certain point becomes toxic. Then the
Every time we have an action ple on the ground that corroborated behind the scenes while I was doing cathartic part is getting it out, whether
moment or a scene, even if it’s big in her point of view; it also gives you a Poacher. After Poacher was complet- through writing or collaborating with
scale, it’s either from her point of view different aspect of what happened. ed, I took it up again, had the idea of amazing people. We had amazing
or from the constable’s point of view. One example of that is the localizing it, and then fully dove into people working on this. In fact, one of
It’s from nobody else’s point of view. mosque scene towards the end. I don’t it for the last, I don’t know, I guess my conditions for working on the film
That makes it experiential and want to ruin it if you’re publishing this, it’s been two and a half to three years was that you had to be a good human
very personal. but she wrote about it from her point now. being.
Also, most of the time, by the of view. Q: What was the most challenging I had to surround myself with
time you realize what is actually hap- What I’ve shown from her point moment in making the film? positivity.
pening in a scene, it’s already over at of view is as accurate as what I thought Richie Mehta: There are two But that catharsis isn’t fully done
that point. The scenes don’t last very she wrote. But I also learned that types of challenges. yet because now comes the release of
long. They might feel like they do, but something else was happening inside One is the mental and emotional the film—getting it out there, having
they don’t. So a lot of it was about that space at the end, something she challenge which is digesting the ma- these discussions and understanding
not overstaying our welcome. It took wasn’t necessarily privy to, but that terial. To write something like this, what it does, and hopefully fully ex-
a long time to work that out and make people who were actually there knew you have to absorb everything in the punging it from my system in a posi-
sure we weren’t indulging ourselves in had happened. source material and to have it stuck in tive context.
the action we were depicting. So I got two complementary ver- your mind. Very simply, what she has The physical endurance of mak-
Q: You did extensive research on sions of the same event which allowed written is the most difficult thing I’ve ing the film was also very, very tough.
Phoolan Devi, including reading her me to create that moment. ever had to read. It would be the most It was 45 to 50 degrees where we were
autobiography and speaking to peo- Q: How long did the shoot take? difficult thing that anyone’s ever had shooting those action scenes. Shoot-
ple connected to the events. Did that Richie Mehta: It was a couple to read. ing in that region was extremely phys-
research change your understanding of months in 2025 in Chambal. We The emotional point of view she ically challenging. It was the most
of her? moved very fast. has on the experiences she’s endured, physically challenging thing I’ve ever
Richie Mehta: There were lots of Q: How long did the entire project and just reading it, was harrowing for done.

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