BENGALURU: As an artiste, Prataya Saha is often drawn to the struggles that women in particular face in a patriarchal society. It is a deep-rooted connection with his childhood in the ’90s when he saw how women were treated differently from men. In line with this, his latest film, Just Another Day draws attention to a raging topic of modern times - depression, abuse during pregnancy and the perception of separated/divorced women in society. The neo-realist film has won accolades at the Madras Independent film festival, Chennai; Indo French International film festival, Pondicherry; and is a semi-finalist at the Lisbon Film Rendezvous, Portugal.
During his research on abuse for his previous film The Good Wife, he came across an article about how women are treated during pregnancy. “My initial reaction was shock. I could not believe such a thing could exist in society during a period when they are in their most vulnerable state. I dug deeper and decided that this needs to be discussed,” he says about the film made in association with Desktop Films and Re d P o l k a Productions. Through the happenings of a single day, the story traces the life of a 40-something newly- separated woman, as she navigates another 24 hours of her life in the busy city of Mumbai. Through Anjali, the audience is made to live the agony of hundreds of women who face stigma for mistakes that are not even their own.
Empathy, he believes, is universal so the target audience needn’t be niche or specific. But the challenges in making the film were many. “Product ion cost multiplied because we had to maintain Covid- appropriate precautions.
Secondly, while planning the film during pre-production, we had to make sure we took into account safety considerations which stretched the entire process,” he says, adding that after the film was scripted, Anshulilka Kapoor, the lead protagonist, did her own research on the role to try to get into the skin of the character. “We used the theatre approach here: Multiple rehearsals and readings. The entire process took four months,” he says, adding that the film has led him to understand the beasts human beings can be and wants the world to discuss this issue that is often swept under the carpet.