Kiran Rao

“I had a very late introduction to films. We didn't watch a lot of films while growing up in Kolkata.”

“I watch certain kinds of masala films.”

“After my 12th, my parents moved to Bangalore while I moved to Mumbai to study Economics at Sophia College. Much unlike other girls who managed to evade the curfew and organised the slips to get out of college, we would attend college and were interested in academics.”

“I think every mother does what is best for her child because it's such a joy and a daily learning experience.”

“We were quite a middle class family, but we had access to all the good things in life, be it books or access to a club. I was outgoing and did a lot of elocution, singing and theatre.”

“If I as a filmmaker take a very radical subject, which might not get an audience in the first week, multiplexes wouldn't agree to let it play on their screens.”

“The box office in an arthouse film is always going to be small. We have to face this and overcome this.”

“I think when you make something that is non-mainstream and people don't have automatic way of consuming, like you don't have a big star, or a hit song or marketing money then you need to find some way to make audience aware of your film.”

“I have always wanted to have a cultural centre where people can sort of have a community of artists and like-minded people sharing their work.”

“Basically, I have always wanted to have an art-house cinema. A cinema where we can show films that are not necessarily the current offerings on circuit and films that are not commercial.”

“Dhobi Ghat' is the only script I actually completed and that I was convinced about wanting to direct.”

“Actually I don't watch a lot of films but when I do, I like experimental, avant garde, European and world cinema. That is the language of cinema I am drawn towards. I don't watch much Hollywood or Bollywood.”

“I was born in Bangalore but grew up in Kolkata and I read, write and speak Bengali.”

“When I went to Jamia, I thought I wanted to be a cinematographer or photographer because I liked telling stories in pictures, but my teachers explained that if you want to tell your own stories then that is what a director does.”

“I would never make a film because I think it's going to be a box-office success.”

“I go to watch the so-called mainstream films for different reasons. I certainly like those films if they are giving me something new to look out for.”

“I don't believe in women-centric films, but I certainly believe that we should create films that have more challenging roles for women and I definitely will have that in all my films.”

“I don't judge cinema on its box-office success.”

“I don't even watch many huge films. I don't go to the cinema every weekend. I watch selective cinema and want to make my kind of films.”

“We want box office success, critical acclaim, awards and everything else. But I think when the audience likes a film, that appreciation is far more fulfilling, far more satisfying than any award.”