After creating a lot of buzz in Los Angeles and winning accolades at London and Melbourne Film Festivals, director Tabrez Noorani’s Love Sonia finally released in India this Friday. Love Sonia, is a hard-hitting story of a 17-year-old girl who risks her life to rescue her sister from a vicious human trafficking network across India, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Love Sonia is Tabrez’s directorial debut who was inspired to make the film after he was introduced to human trafficking in LA in 2003.
The film stars Manoj Bajpayee, Richa Chadha, Rajkummar Rao, Sai Tamhankar, Adil Hussain, Demi Moore, Mark Duplass, Freida Pinto and the protagonist Mrunal Thakur, who is making her entry into Bollywood.
The film has been produced by Academy Award nominated producer David Womark, who also produced Life of Pi. David says, ‘You don’t make movies about subject, you make movies about characters.’ He shares more about his latest venture.
What prompted you to make a film on human trafficking?
When Tabrez and I were working on the Life of Pi that’s when he incessantly spoke about a girl whose sister had been trapped in this dark world of human trafficking and wanted to rescue her. There have been many films which celebrate the love and bond between two sisters, but what sets Love Sonia apart is the way Tabrez has directed it, the way he tells the story and how beautifully the emotions have been captured. If you look beyond the film, human trafficking is an important issue, however the audience doesn’t come to watch a film to get a lecture on it. They come to see a story they connect with and that’s what we have tried to do through the film.
How did you manage to bring humaneness in each character with such a dark subject as the focal point?
The audience may think that Sonia is a victim, but she is not. She is someone who makes this tough decision of saving her sister by risking her own life. In real life, before she stepped into this dark world, she was like any other girl, talking normally like you and me and had a social life. However, when you are making a film, you don’t think about all those facets and I think that is the hardest thing to do — to tap into the right emotions, and find the right example. The emotions of the characters are extremely important in storytelling.
What were the challenges of telling the story of two sisters amidst everything dark and grim?
How do you tell a story which is bold and still captures the audience’s heart? While dealing with a subject like this, you have to be very careful about the invisible line. You have to tell the story and show the characters in a realistic way. Through your story or film, you don’t exploit the exploited by going too far, visually and emotionally, yet at the same time you don’t want to make the story so soft that you do injustice to the characters. I think that’s the line we needed to find. What makes the movie so powerful is that we navigated that invisible line in such a way that the audience is focussed on Sonia’s journey and that’s probably the reason why the film has been getting such positive reviews. Although the subject of human trafficking is dark and ugly, the story of a woman who loves her sister enough to risk her own life fascinates everyone.
How did you choose the cast and how closely did you observe their work?
The cast of Love Sonia is very popular and has a body of work that talk about their acting prowess. Manoj, Richa, Rajkummar, Adil, Freida and all other actors have done some amazing films and have a pedigree of awards. Love Sonia is a very realistic and organic film, so I had to make careful decisions while selecting the actors. I watched Gangs of Wasseypur, Shahid etc and everybody else’s work which was so exciting because it gave me an insight into Indian films. Sonia is the protagonist in the film but great acting is all about conviction — whether you are a protagonist or an antagonist, you help the audience understand the decisions that each character is taking. And I have to say that one of the best experiences of working on this film was working with this amazing cast. There are good actors in every country, but they are few in number. We were plain lucky to get them.
