Kanu Behl says "Titli", about a boy's struggle to escape his oppressive elder brother, is a coming-of-age story that explores the patriarchy and the circle of violence running within a family.
Behl assisted director Dibakar Banerjee on "Oye Lucky Lucky Oye" and co-wrote "Love Sex Aur Dhokha (LSD)" before making his feature debut. Now, Dibakar has turned producer for Behl's "Titli" with Yash Raj Films.
Behl says he was writing another film before "Titli" but he abandoned it midway.
"I was writing another film for a year but I could not make it. I realised that it was a dishonest attempt. A lot was going wrong in my personal life and in panic, I was trying to make just any film. This led to a reassessment and I realised that whatever I write next has to be personal and come from my own experience," Behl told PTI in an interview.
The period of introspection led to "Titli", which he co-wrote with Sharat Katariya, who made his directorial debut this year with winsome love story "Dum Laga Ke Haisha".
Behl says they kept asking questions, raising doubts and adding details that came from his own experiences to the movie.
"Initially, I wanted to write about this young boy wanting to run away from an elder, oppressive brother which was directly related to some of my experiences while growing up. I had a strained and difficult relationship with my father like many other young boys in North India.
"But a completely different thing opened up and we realised that what we thought was a film about oppression, is about family rhythm, patriarchy and circularity of same images and themes."
The movie, starring Ranvir Shorey, Shashank Arora, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Amit Sial, and Lalit Behl, will release on October 30.
Set in a Delhi slum, the movie is about Titli, the youngest member of a violent car-jacking family and his desperate attempt to escape the family business. The detail about carjackers comes from a news item that Behl read. It helped him create a back-story that would explain the reason behind the anger.
"There was some sort of anger that was travelling from the outside into the house and then from the house to the outside world. Vikram, the elder brother, works as a security guard in a mall for 16 hours. He sees people coming and buying stuff. He sees this world of haves whereas there is no money in his house. How does that person feel?
"The Nirbhaya case had happened at that time and it shocked many. But it was not an isolated case. We were trying to understand the root of that violence. We realised that this external violence of carjacking or this small petty crime was important for us in order to understand this house and its world.
