World premiere: Phoolan Devi biopic applauded at Toronto International Film Festival

Toronto: A sharply focused film capturing a crisis faced by bandit queen Phoolan Devi as a teenager was received with applause, even a standing ovation, as it had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).Newcomer Sneha Kumari essays the role of the teenaged bandit queen in “Phoolan”. (Courtesy: TIFF)Following on the success Delhi Crime, the series he helmed, Indo-Canadian director Richie Mehta brought his latest project, the biopic Phoolan, an Indian production, for its first screenings to Toronto.Unlike Shekhar Kapur’s acclaimed Bandit Queen, Mehta’s Phoolan offers are more “intimate” look at the scourge of the Chambal, encompassing a 48-hour period during which the teenaged Devi is under siege by law enforcement agencies.Mehta was raised in Mississauga in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), but has shifted to India and the premiere was a homecoming of sorts for him. “It feels wonderful to come home and show this film and show this film made with, you know, an entirely Indian cast and crew, right?” he said, in an interview prior to the maiden screening of Phoolan.It was inspired by I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India’s Bandit Queen, which was published in 1996. Originally, the idea was to create a series but Mehta felt far too much of what she experienced was horrific and “not showable”. So, he chose the two-day siege. “I reached this chapter where the siege occurred, I felt this is unbelievable, but it’s showable. It’s the first time we had an extreme horrifying situation that is showable. And not only showable, I think showable in a way that younger audiences, teenagers, young men, young women could actually watch this and understand the gravity of the oppression against her through a language they would understand, which is a combat film,” he said.Playing Phoolan is Sneha Kumari, from Jhansi, who trained in theatre but is making her film debut. She clinched the role after submitting an online audition. She faced the “challenge” through research as she was aware of the character but not the details of her life. She was thrilled with making her appearance in Toronto. “It’s like a dream for me that my first project is getting a platform like TIFF,” she said.“She was incredibly hardworking and she knew the cultural and linguistic nuances that I would never have access to,” Mehta said of directing her.“You see a lot about how she was very smart and very strategic, but it is a close-up on her legend and not an overall look at her story,” TIFF’s director of programming Robyn Citizen said of the film.