London Film Festival 2019 : ‘The Sky is Pink’ director Shonali Bose on her film, featuring Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar – releases worldwide tomorrow (October 11)… (video)

Talks about death not as tragedy, getting her dream cast and what played London played in this remarkable story…

In this interview ahead of the worldwide release of the film, The Sky is Pink on October 11 2019 – starring Priyanka Chopra, Farhan Akhtar (seen our interview with him in Toronto about this film?) and Zaira Wasim, director Shonali Bose talks about the origins of the story and how she came to make it and getting two heavy-hitting producers in Siddharth Roy Kapur and Ronnie Screwvala to back it.
She refers to her own son’s demise -in 2010 Ishaan, 16, sustained serious burns in a shaving accident in their LA home, and later died in hospital.
The film is based on the life story of Aisha Chaudhary, who was a motivational speaker and published a popular book, ‘My Little Epiphanies’ to great acclaim. She died just a day after the publication in 2015, aged 18.
The film sees her (Wasim in the film) narrating her parents’ – Niren (Panda) and Aditi’s (Moose) relationship – and their long battle against a genetic disease which had claimed their first child. Ayesha also nicknamed her brother, also called Ishaan (Rohit Saraf) – Giraffe.

NOTE: Bose’s first film ‘Amu’ (2005) covers the appalling violence against Sikhs shortly after the assassination of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. Many call it a genocide and claim it was politically motivated by the Congress administration – Bose alleges it was ‘orchestrated’ by the Congress government. This remains a contentious claim with both arguments for and against.