Titli (2014 film)

Plot

In the badlands of Delhi's dystopic underbelly, Titli, the youngest member of a violent car-jacking brotherhood, plans to escape from the 'family' and their line of work. He gets married to Neelu as planned by Titli's brothers to leash him. In a desperate attempt Titli betrays his brothers by informing beforehand about a job of theirs to police to get away from their clutches. Neelu even though married to Titli, she pines for a wealthy married man. Titli supports this for his financial gain. Even though Titli has been free from his family's stranglehold, nothing goes as planned. Neelu and Titli get back together.

Cast

Development

Behl, who co-wrote and also assisted director Dibakar Banerjee in Love Sex aur Dhokha (LSD) (2010), started writing Titli as LSD neared completion. In 2011, the news report of a car-jacker gang in Delhi led by a local goon, Joginder Joga, inspired him to start working on the story of a thriller. However, as he developed the script, other themes started joining in, from his personal experiences growing up in the city. Though he denied it being autobiographical, he mentioned in an interview that the idea of intra-family conflict was derived from his own clashes with his father as a rebellious teenager. He eventually co-wrote the script with Sharat Katariya, and it covered themes of patriarchy, family dysfunction, gender-based violence and oppression, and "a desire for freedom". Through the protagonist, the film also explores the circular nature of life – "how we often end up becoming exactly the person we are trying to run away from."

In 2012, the script of the film was selected for NFDC Film Bazaar's Screenwriter's Lab and won the Post-Production Award at Film Bazaar's Work-In-Progress Lab in 2013. Here it also won an award for Best Work-In-Progress Lab Project and was selected for Film Bazaar Recommends, where the 2014 Cannes Film Festival selection committee first saw the film.

Filming

For the lead roles, relative newcomers Shashank Arora and Shivani Raghuvanshi were selected. Actors Amit Sial and Ranvir Shorey were chosen to play the role of two elder brothers to Titli's character. Next, he decided to cast his own father Lalit Behl, who is a Delhi-based director and actor, for the role of the patriarch of the family, considering the film itself was based on his early life experiences.

The film was shot across various locations in Delhi. During filming, he allowed the actors to explore the scenes and improvise as no scripts were brought to the set. The production team redesigned a house to give a claustrophobic feel to the family home, where much of the filming was done, to provide a contrast from the expansive real world outside, which the protagonist is trying to escape into. For this purpose, rooms were made smaller, the entrance was made labyrinthine, and even the natural light was reduced in the rooms, so that the tube light haze could add to the effect.

By early May 2014, the movie's post-production was completed, ahead of its Cannes premiere due in the same month.

International Film Festivals attended

Awards

The film was Nominated for Caméra d'Or at 2014 Cannes Film Festival The film won the Critics Prize at FIFIB, Bordeaux, Best Film at Seattle South Asian Film Festival, NETPAC Award at Hawaii International Film Festival, Best Film at SAIFF, New York,Best International Film at Malatya International, Turkey, Best Actress and Best Film, Gijón International Film Festival, Spain, and the Audience Award at Festival du Film d'Asie du Sud Transgressif (FFAST), Paris.

Box office

The film collected ₹1.75 crore (US$270,000) nett in its first week.