In Kaisi Ye Paheli (2025), filmmaker Ananyabrata Chakravorty turns the seemingly familiar landscape of a small town murder mystery into something far more intimate. The movie is a meditation on a traumatic memory and the fragile power dynamics between a mother and son, set in the fictional hill town of Shottipur in the Kalimpong district of West Bengal, India. Kaisi Ye Paheli follows a 60-year-old widow who unexpectedly steps into a murder investigation, not to grieve, but to be seen. Chakravorty maintains a mood of unease and encroaching danger, creating a curious atmosphere that is both menacing and heavy with tension.

Kaisi Ye Paheli premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival on June 21, 2025. In this interview, Chakravorty opens up about reimagining the mother figure in Indian cinema, bending the rules of genre storytelling and grounding his narrative in the quiet tension of the hills.

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Dipankar Sarkar: You’ve worked across various mediums, from fiction to lyric writing to directing short films. With Kaisi Ye Paheli, how did these experiences shape the rhythm of the script?

Ananyabrata Chakravorty: The mediums I explored have surely taught me a lot about storytelling. But I feel, more than these experiences, it’s the characters and the world that have shaped the rhythm of this script. For instance, in my first short film, I was telling the story of an entrepreneur in Bangalore, and here we are with an old mother in the hills. So, the rhythms are distinctly different.

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DS: You present the protagonist, a widowed mother, as someone who offers comfort while also quietly challenging her son’s sense of self. Was this contrast something you started with, or did the character emerge as the emotional core while shaping the story through the lens of the genre?

AC: I think I wanted to tell a story about the conflict between mothers and their adult sons. Through observation and reflection, I have witnessed this relationship change drastically as the son grows increasingly independent. While the mother tries to retain the beginning of the relationship, the son shies away, almost in rebellion, as if the stories of his birth aren’t even true. The murder mystery genre emerged when I tried to find a metaphor for this problem. And then the incompetence of the policemen and the reluctance of the son to admit that his mother is brilliant led to the humor.

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DS: Also, the mother isn’t a passive nurturer, but rather a lonely, intellectually curious woman. Why did you choose to ground her deductive skills in her reading of Agatha Christie and Satyajit Ray, rather than in formal experience or training?

AC: Formal training and experience would remove any doubts about whether she is capable or not. There would be a stamp of authority on her achievements. But since she only claims to have assisted her policeman husband, who isn’t alive to verify, she must now prove that she is indeed an intelligent woman, and not the quintessential housewife her son wants to reduce her to.

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DS: As a son, Uttam is almost blind to his mother’s worth, and their relationship remains strained. Were you exploring incompetence, repression or a state of denial in his character?

AC: I was trying to explore male ego and the resulting denial. From a generic standpoint, it’s also a professional’s ego — the “don’t teach me how to do my job” mindset, even if the one trying to help is far more capable. Besides, Uttam is an insecure man when around women. One can sense how his ego takes the driver’s seat when he is with his mother or his girlfriend — something that seems completely gone when he is around men.

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DS: Bondo enters the story late, exposing cracks in the police department while his arrogance heightens the tension. Was his arrival meant to serve a structural shift, or to echo classic detective archetypes?

AC: Bondo’s introduction does a couple of things, I feel. It serves as an interesting beat in the story, and there is a shift in the rhythm. Bondo also presents the possibilities of what the motive of the killer could be, so it lingers in the audience’s mind. His entry also sets the mother up against an experienced detective. By now, we already know that she is sharper than the cops, but the question now is: can she solve the crime before the detective does? Also, with the casting choice of Rajit Kapur, who is loved for his unforgettable portrayal of [the title character in] Byomkesh Bakshi (1993-97), it all becomes a bit meta because the mother is a fan of detective stories.

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DS: Kaisi Ye Paheli is set in a small town in the Himalayan foothills of West Bengal — a serene region being shaped for tourism, where a murder threatens its image and sparks a possible cover-up. What inspired you to set the story in this particular region? 

AC: I chose the hills of Bengal for the apparent simplicity and the “story” vibe. I thought the region, because of its visual charm and character, lends itself to detective fiction. Or maybe, much like Uttam’s mother, I am fascinated by the fictional  detective characters Feluda and Byomkesh, who are both from Bengal and have done well in the hills.

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DS: How did you approach the politics of place without turning the narrative into a statement?

AC: I don’t think I delved too deeply into the politics of the place. Shottipur is just a fictional town with generic politicians who only care about optics.

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DS: The hill town of Shottipur comprises a close-knit society, shrouded in mystery and exquisite beauty, yet it’s never romanticized by the camera. There’s a quiet restraint and an observational quality in the way spaces are framed. Could you tell us about your visual design for the film?

AC: That quality comes entirely from our brilliant cinematographer, Leena Patoli, who cared to serve the story instead of just taking beautiful shots. The framing was influenced by the movement of the narrative, and the focus was on what’s going on around and inside the heads of the people who live there. And yet, the beauty of the place, even though not underlined, gets noticed.

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DS: Your casting choices — Sadhana Singh, Sukant Goel, Rajit Kapoor and Chittaranjan Giri — are striking and thoughtful. What drew you to these actors, and how did you guide them to bring out the layers in their roles?

AC: I only want to work with good actors. It may seem obvious, but a lot of choices in casting are made based on popularity. I didn’t want to do that, as my characters are layered, and popular but not-so-good actors won’t be able to play them properly. So, I asked my friend and casting director Deepak Agarwal to pitch the script only to the fabulous actors on our wish list, and thanks to his experience and network, we were able to reach them all. We are very fortunate that these amazing actors liked the story and chose to come on board, despite the fact that we are such a new team. 

Directing them was easy. They got most of their characters right out of the script. Then we sat for three or four sessions discussing the intentions and momentum of each scene, and the behavior of the characters over time, and that was it.

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DS: With Nishu Dikshit producing and the film also being crowd-funded, how challenging was it to mount an independent project of this scale, both logistically and creatively?

AC: Thankfully for me, the logistical challenges were handled beautifully by producer Nishu Dikshit and her team, and I didn’t have to worry about them at all. It’s incredible how they managed all of it on such a small budget in a land far from home. And we must thank the lovely people of Ravangla in Sikkim who supported us at every step of production.

Creatively, the challenge was to write the script in a way that it could be filmed on a budget, and be aware of the key shots and scenes which we had to get right before moving on, because we knew there [wouldn’t] be any money to re-shoot. The shot breakdown and scheduling also became more fun and challenging, thanks to these constraints.

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DS: Kaisi Ye Paheli is set to have its world premiere at the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF), competing for Best Screenplay and Best Debut Film. What does this recognition mean to you at this stage of your journey?

AC: It’s reassuring. And the validation means all the more because we didn’t tailor our film for awards and festivals. We told the story we loved in a way that we thought was right for it, without catering to the gaze with which most international festivals tend to look at Indian films.

We are very lucky that there exists a festival like NYIFF, which doesn’t sideline a meaningful film just because it has the potential to become popular. We are dancing in joy that they’ve chosen us.

Our next aim is to crack distribution and reach the common people across India, for whom this film [was] made.

Dipankar Sarkar (@Dipankar_Tezpur) is a graduate in film editing from the Film and Television Institute of India and currently based in Mumbai. As a freelancer, he frequently contributes to various Indian publications on cinema-related topics.

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