Radhika Madan says a film at TIFF, helps being taken seriously

• For the world premiere of her movie, Kacchey Limbu, Radhika Madan recently attended the 47th Toronto International Film Festival.
• Now she is returning home with a treasure trove of memories.
• The 27-year-old adds that there were hardly any Indian people in the audience.

For the world premiere of her movie, Kacchey Limbu, Radhika Madan recently attended the 47th Toronto International Film Festival. Now she is returning home with a treasure trove of memories. The actor acknowledges that being on a worldwide stage reaffirmed the idea that “honest cinema” is not constrained by linguistic limitations.

She elaborates, “The takeaway from this experience at the TIFF is that if you make your film with utmost honesty, if you don’t get stuck into this thing of making a good or a bad film, you don’t need to even break the language barriers… Because honesty doesn’t need a language. It just transcends. And this is something which was reinforced at the premiere.”

The 27-year-old adds that there were hardly any Indian people in the audience. “But the way they (audience present) reacted to the movie, made us feel that honesty surpasses everything. You don’t need a language or anything (to tell a story). In fact, it has been the biggest learning for me as well, and this will be the approach for every film going forward,” she recounts.

Madan was anxious about her outing, despite the fact that she had previously attended the prestigious TIFF. She previously attended the festival in 2018 along with the Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota cast.

“Till the very day of the premiere, I couldn’t believe that the film had made it to TIFF. All the amazing films with beautiful actors who the world looks upto were there, I just couldn’t place myself there. I have a hard time owning up. However, we went ahead with a lot of pride,” says the Angrezi Medium (2020) actor.

Here, she asserts that the fate of a movie can also be altered by the world stage. “When a film is premiered on a platform like TIFF, it is also taken seriously back at home. It is not just another film. And that’s very important for us because we need to reach as many people as we can,” says the actor.

Madan considers Kacchey Limbu, a coming-of-age tale of siblings, to be a highly significant tale. “Even though it is told in a very casual manner, it addresses a very important topic about dreams, about having a voice, especially women, because more than 90% of the women, don’t have the luxury to dream because their life is already decided by people around them,” she ends.