Growing up in the Philippines, I loved all kinds of movies. We had a very healthy film industry there when I was a child.
When I entered the industry in the early 1970s, I was a gold medalist from the film institute, Pune. That was when graduates from the film institute were very quickly absorbed by the mainstream commercial industry.
I don't know if there's a problem with original ideas... I think a healthy film industry should have a good supply of good, original writing.
When I joined the industry there were mafia like Haji Mastan and Vardharajan. They had a healthy relationship with film stars. Their men never came calling for 'petis' and 'khokas.' In fact they used to felicitate film personalities.
Growing up in the Philippines, I loved all kinds of movies. We had a very healthy film industry there when I was a child. It's now gotten very limited. They only make action movies and hard-core exploitation movies. Women get raped; men get shot.
It is very, very, very difficult for an American actor who wants a film career to be open about his sexuality. And even more difficult for a woman if she's lesbian. It`s very distressing to me that that should be the case. The film industry is very old fashioned in California.
For film, you know, the Tarantinos and Nolans of the world who are very focused on a certain kind of film aesthetic and a certain kind of presentation, to be honest, that comes from a place of privilege. It comes from a place of always having access to such, but when you ain't never - you can't see it because you can't even get to it.
There are few teachers from the film industry to guide newcomers. One can see a gap between the film industry and those teaching at film schools.
In the film industry you work very long hours, and making a film is a very intense process.
My father, Inder Raj Anand, was a well-known writer in the film industry but he did not want me, or my younger brother Bittu, to enter this industry. He would say it was not the place for us.
In my opinion, having worked in the games industry and still keeping in touch with a lot of those guys, there was definitely a time when they saw themselves as the little brother of the film industry. But they kind of went off in a different direction and now see themselves, I think, as being far more interesting and ahead of the film industry. They haven't just caught up. They've gone off in a different direction and exceeded the film industry.
Many of my friends are not in the film industry, and I feel like it's healthy. It's not totally by choice. It is, perhaps, people I connect with.
I finally, you know, moved to Mexico City, where the film industry is. I started working there as a producer, which is a very, very valid thing for women to do, because we always produce for men, right?
Bhojpuri film industry is very small - precisely eight people govern the whole industry and I am one of them.
I hope it's always going to be a mix between theatre, film and radio. I've been very lucky living in London that you can do all that - in New York and L.A., there's more of a structure for film in L.A. and theatre in New York. In London, our industry is smaller, but it produces brilliant work all in one place.
My contacts with the film industry can be described in very simple terms: The industry does not really need me, and I do not really need the industry.