When Anooya Swamy began writing a short film named Pankaja at New York University (NYU), she was thousands of kilometres away from Bengaluru, her hometown. Yet, the story kept taking her home – to the neighbourhoods she grew up in, her relationship with her mother and the Kannada-speaking world outside her Telugu household. The experience became central to Pankaja, a Kannada short that began as a second-year NYU curricular project and has since travelled to international festivals, winning at HollyShorts, Palm Springs and Raindance. The recognition at the Raindance Film Festival in London (Best Live Action Shot Award) also made the film Oscar-qualifying. “The fact that it was specific and people saw themselves and their relationships with their mothers is what resonated with international audiences,” she feels.
The film draws from her childhood, when her family lived in the Agara area near Tirumala Theatre before moving to HSR Layout. But Pankaja is not just another story about the lives of labourers. Swamy wanted to look at what happens around them, particularly to the women in their families. “When we talk about the lives of these miners and we speak about these labourers, it can be a little 2D and we don’t see whose lives are affected,” she notes, adding, the film looks at how women bear the brunt of such systems.
Her relationship with her mother also became a key emotional starting point. The initial spark came while she was in New York, when she visited an exhibition on sand miners.
Being away from home made her want to write about it. Influenced by filmmakers, including Lee Chang-dong and Mira Nair, she began bringing together larger social concerns with her own memories. The film took shape further when she met actors Harshini Boyalla and Padma Shri.
Visually, too, she wanted Bengaluru to look different from familiar representations of poverty. “I wanted to represent Bengaluru the way I saw it. It felt new,” she says. For Swamy, regional storytelling is also about putting lesser-known places on the global map. “The more regional we get, the more diverse we get. And why should we all know where New York, Houston or Ohio is? When the world doesn’t know where Bengaluru is.”
The film’s Oscar qualification has been both exciting and complicated. While the recognition has made her take her craft more seriously, it has also prompted her to question how much awards should matter to an artiste. “I don’t think it’s going to do too much to me, but I know what it can do for the community and it makes me want to pursue it,” she says.
Beyond all of that now what she wants most now is to bring Pankaja home. After its US screenings and a month-long theatrical run at New York’s IFC Center, she is waiting to show the film to Bengaluru audiences. “I want to know what our people think,” she says.
Swamy is currently working on two features – one set to be shot in New York and another in Bengaluru, while also developing a project she hopes to bring to the city soon. But Pankaja remains the film that brought her back home, even when she was far away.