Debutant director Sonal Joshi, who is all excited about her upcoming film Sukhee, that’s already making the right noise, gets candid with The Pioneer, and shares some interesting insights about the film.
SHIKHA DUGGAL
Debutant director Sonal Joshi’s upcoming film Sukhee is about to release featuring the star Shilpa Shetty Kundra. The film perfectly harnesses the feeling of her character of a tired mom who takes a vacation from her routine life to rediscover her zest for life
into a groovy and positive, with a filmy touch of life. And, let’s be honest! With a movie like this self-care is just sometimes not enough to fix the burnout wives go to. So Shilpa just packs her bag and goes for a reunion according to the plot of the movie. We needed some more interesting details and the director was on board with us for the same.
She reports, “Feeling extremely ‘sukhee’ on the professional front. I have managed to put so many tiny pieces of my aspirations together and this gigantic dream of mine is coming on celluloid now. As a filmmaker, I usually don’t think of casting superstars for the sake of not compromising on originality. So for Sukhee, I shared a script narration with my mum and she’s always busy watching India’s Got Talent. She happened to mention Shilpa. I gave a thought, and she was the only actress I gave a narration to and she was seeing eye to eye with me.”
She is making this movie to make a point—stop putting pressure on women. They have a life of their own too! Sonal concurs stay-at-home moms don’t even have a Sunday to themselves. Just get out of that mental labor. She continued, “I see a lot of my mother in the story. And I like the feel-good genres from childhood. It was really important for Shilpa Shetty to get into the character’s psyche or we would have broken down.”
Now Kusha and she go a long way because the director narrated, “We were college friends. We did nukkad natak together! With this movie, we were reconnecting again and sharing that bond for fine arts. The bonding got so easier with Shilpa’s bindass attitude, and Kusha’s jokes. Because it’s my first film, even the challenges seemed very fond to me. This is never going to happen again.”
The director is hoping she hears those meaningful conversations happening post her release—for instance, help yourself first. Self-care is not selfish, women. It’s okay to move away from mundane activities and discover what you used to be passionate about. “Women empowerment was in my mind while writing the script for Sukhee. Women shouldn’t be judged! Let them prioritize themselves,” added the director.
