Manish Mundra: You can’t become judgmental

Siya director Mundra says biggest challenge is to have a balanced approach as he tells the story of a rape survivor’s pursuit for justice

For years, Manish Mundra was content backing films that resonated with him — from Masaan (2015), to Newton (2017) and Kaamyaab (2020). With Siya, however, he felt the urge to wield the directorial baton and tell the story exactly as he had envisioned it.

Manish Mundra

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The Pooja Pandey and Vineet Kumar Singh-starrer takes an unflinching look at the trauma that rape survivors endure, highlighting the apathy with which the law enforcement agencies in India treat these cases. “What you read and come across in society leaves an impact on you. Some of the rape cases that happened across our country in the past two-three years triggered me, and I thought of going deeper into them. Personally, I realised there is a pattern — if a case is in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Rajasthan, it becomes [a tussle] of the powerful versus the less empowered. It’s not about caste or creed, but about power,” says the director, who then centred his story on the rape survivor and her family’s fight to seek justice.

Such a movie demands sensitivity. Mundra adds it is equally crucial to maintain a balanced approach. “The biggest challenge is you can’t become judgmental. You have to present the case in a balanced narrative. Every story has two sides. That’s the challenge I faced. Writing scenes is easy, but having the actors enact them becomes difficult. The scenes stay with you.”

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