Nepali filmmaker Deepak Rauniyar and actress Asha Magrati faced unexpected challenges while preparing to shoot their film Pooja, Sir in 2022. What began as a troubling throat swelling for Magrati, Rauniyar’s wife, during a trip to New York quickly escalated into a series of cancer diagnoses that threatened both her health and the film’s production.
“We still attended Frontieres,” Rauniyar said, referring to the film market in Montreal where they were promoting another project. However, upon returning to North Carolina, where Rauniyar was teaching, the couple struggled to secure urgent medical care. “It was hard to get doctors, because it didn’t feel urgent for them,” he explained. With production plans already in place and tickets purchased for the team to fly to Nepal, they found themselves in a difficult situation.
On August 29, 2022—Rauniyar’s birthday—they received the first diagnosis. A week later, they learned that Magrati had three types of cancer, forcing them to halt production indefinitely. The setbacks accumulated quickly; their investor withdrew, believing the film would never be completed, and they lost grants due to missed deadlines. The couple relocated to New York for nearly a year of treatment. Tragically, during this time, Magrati also lost her father.
By April 2023, as Magrati’s treatment was concluding, they faced a critical decision. “I didn’t want to come back home and just think about what we went through,” Rauniyar admitted. The couple needed to find a way to finance the film and ensure Magrati could perform her role.
Determined, they reached out to friends for support. Three friends, including their doctor, provided initial funding. A Nepali production company, Baasuri Films, also offered local support. Additionally, their director of photography, Sheldon Chau, agreed to buy camera equipment and defer payment. Many actors and crew members joined the project, often working for reduced rates or deferring their fees.
This grassroots support eventually allowed them to consider resuming filming. They also received backing from the Norwegian Film Institute’s Sorfond, as well as funds from the Torino Film Lab and the Berlinale World Cinema Fund.
Pooja, Sir, co-written by Rauniyar, David Barker, and Magrati, addresses the caste system prevalent in South Asia, particularly the emphasis on skin color. The story follows Pooja, a light-skinned Nepali police officer who becomes the country’s first female detective. As protests erupt in a border town against systemic discrimination faced by the dark-skinned Madhesi community, Pooja must solve the kidnapping of two light-skinned boys within 48 hours, with few clues to guide her. To do this, she reluctantly seeks help from Mamata, a dark-skinned Madhesi policewoman.
Magrati faced additional challenges while preparing for her role, as her cancer treatment took a physical toll. “I couldn’t prepare as much as I wanted, and I couldn’t do the physical police exercises,” she explained.
The side effects of her hormone therapy also complicated the shooting process. “My medicine tamoxifen made me feel crazy. My hormones were all over the place,” she recalled.
Despite these obstacles, Magrati remained committed to the project. “She didn’t think twice; she said yes,” Rauniyar said about her decision to travel to Nepal for filming. “I wouldn’t have had the courage to take on such a heavy role,” he added.
Filming in the Madhesh Province of Nepal in July posed its own challenges, with temperatures soaring to 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit). However, both Rauniyar and Magrati found new meaning in the experience, gaining deeper empathy for their characters.
The character of Pooja, a queer police officer, draws inspiration from real-life encounters during their research. “Talking about queer characters in the police force is very rare from our part of the world,” Rauniyar noted. “When we decided to make a film about this, it felt truthful and relevant. We hope it will provoke conversations.”
Rauniyar believes the film’s themes are urgent and increasingly relevant worldwide. “Race and queerness are current subjects everywhere,” he said, drawing parallels to racial tensions in the U.S. and recent riots in the U.K. “In South Asia, we often don’t recognize we have a racial problem.”
“This is our life story,” Magrati added. “Whenever we travel, light-skinned people treat us badly. It hurts me, and I try to fight against it wherever I go. This is an urgent story that we need to tell.”
As Pooja, Sir prepares for its world premiere in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival, Rauniyar and Magrati are also looking ahead to future projects, including a horror film set in New York and a feature based on the true story of a Nepali immigrant in the U.K. For now, they are focused on sharing Pooja, Sir, which has already secured distribution in several territories.
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