Mehar Malhotra's Punjabi-language short ‘Shadows Of Moonless Nights’ was the only Indian entry in the La Cinef section—part of Official Selection programming—at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Creating a film about a middle-class warehouse worker succumbed to successive sleepless nights is one thing. But using a process as routine as sleep as a catalyst to both interlace and ignite the underlying themes of class struggle, family dynamics, and grief, is something completely apart. Malhotra’s idea to base this film on her own experience with sleepless nights as a student proves just that.
When asked about what inspired her to create a film about “this young boy, almost on the verge of manhood, in this dead-end job at a factory,” Malhotra says that “Initially, it was supposed to be a young girl because during my whole time in FTII, I have made films with a female protagonist. During the course, I've experimented a lot, because FTII gives you the resources, time, and space to find your own voice.” She also mentions that she didn’t find this support anywhere outside of the institute.
While she wanted to experiment with the resources at her disposal, and having worked primarily with female protagonists, Malhotra wished to do something different this time. “I wanted to give myself a little bit of a challenge," she says. She wanted to “get into the psyche of a young boy and a story which is so personal to me and twist it into the psyche of a young boy, and to see that if I can pull this off.”
Prayrak Mehta, who plays that young boy, the protagonist Rajan, had not only discussed his character with Mehar prior to filming but completely immersed himself into his “rhythm and routine.” “I really wanted to get the spine right,” he says. “I feel like lines become kind of like a cheat code to do a scene properly. But when you don't have lines, if you don't know what the character is, the camera will censor it. It will see the blankness in your eyes,” he reveals.
“Mehar and I have talked about the character, about her journey, about myself,” Mehta says, stating that he and the director spoke extensively about Rajan and what his life is like, which slowly turned into a routine. “And the locations they had. Wow! That house, that claustrophobia. It was already there,” he adds, explaining that the set already laid a solid foundation for him to build on.
The conversation then shifts to Nikita Grover, who plays Rajan’s sister Anju. When asked whether she and Mehta had any prior conversations to prepare themselves for a particular scene that ends up being fundamental to their character development, she says that they didn’t really speak about it. “We didn't do a lot of takes for that scene." “Prayrak let me lead that scene, and we just went with the flow,” she adds. Malhotra reveals that although this particular scene was difficult to shoot because of limited space, she did not have to do any retakes because of the chemistry Mehta and Grover manifested on screen as Rajan and Anju.
Shadows of Moonless Nights is a testament to the fact that when it comes to storytelling, recognising personal, lived experiences as stories worthy of sharing knows no bounds. And we find this in Malhotra’s own views around storytelling across the Indian diaspora too.
“Since the beginning of human civilisation, people come, dance around the fire, they celebrate each other, they celebrate food. So, I think it's in our basic instinct to come together and celebrate as a community whatever is most important to us. I have huge faith in the human civilisation because we are born storytellers,” she expresses.