Cannes 2024 (Directors’ Fortnight): Sister Midnight | Interview of Karan Kandhari
Quirky, dark humour makes Sister Midnight fabulous. We interviewed Indian director Karan Kandhari in the wake of the premiere of his directorial debut at the 2024 Director’s Fortnight, as part of the 77th Cannes Film Festival.
Karan Kandhari talks about his first feature film, Sister Midnight which premiered at the 56th Directors’ Fortnight, as part of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. This film took him 10 years to make and he sure is pleased that it got shown at Cannes to an audience, to enjoy the witty dark humour of the film.
“It took me 10 years to bring my script to be a film and I am surprised by the reaction I received for the film. It is unbelievable,“ said Karan Kandhari, an Indian born in Kuwait and currently living in London. “I have written my script for this film when I visited Mumbai 10 years ago and although the film is still close to the main script, it has evolved a bit,” he adds.
The film is based in Mumbai, sets forth a wild tale of young bride who dares to find her own way. It is bold, quirky and full of dark humour and incidentally also named after an Iggy Pop song, one of Karan’s favourite singers.
“Music is such a big deal for me. I’m listening to a lot of music when I’m writing. Not necessarily that that’s the music that’s going to make it into the film. I was also listening to a lot of Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith and a lot of Bob Dylan. There’s a scene in the film that comes straight from a Bob Dylan lyric.“
“I was very young, was just out of art school and visited Bombay (Mumbai). I didn’t really know the city, and it had a sort of intoxicating personality. And it’s such a mishmash of wonderful things, so many different cultures, so many weird histories, so many different subsections of society. All these things are clashing with each other, and somehow it works. And really, I was not being able to get the city out of my head. That was the initial seed for writing this story,” he adds further.
He also had to built the street and shacks to get the feel of the old Mumbai that he had visited, but he built the shacks because, initially he wanted to shoot it in a real setup, it’s also very difficult and also didn’t want to disrupt the communities.
Talking about his main lead actor Radhika Apte gets him animated. “I was struggling to find an actress who would fit the character and about five years ago, and we were just trying to look around and look at films and TV shows and trying to see who could do it. Nobody I saw even got to the stage where I wanted to meet anyone because nobody felt like the character. I was like, I just can’t find, it’s very specific, the types of performers I’m interested in, when someone recommended that I look at Radhika Apte. Watching her clips, I was sure that she was perfect for my character as she is one fearless, exciting prolific actor to work with. It was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had with an actor. It was like going to work with like the best imaginary friend every day. I’ve lived with this character for so long and the film is behavioural, and it has its own very strange rhythm to the comedy, the performances,” he explained.
Karan calls himself an artist and feels that he expresses himself in many mediums. “This film has always been the thing I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. But these things take so long and I’m lucky that I can express myself in other ways that are more immediate sometimes. But it’s all like kind of one big cauldron that everything comes from, my unconscious,” he adds.
Karan likes to story board and then bring the film to life, for he feels that there neds to be a particular rhythm, as he sees them like musical notes.
Karan thanks his amazing music supervisor who’s worked with him since his short films. “I think the best way I can describe the music is there’s a playfulness, I think, in the way it’s juxtaposed against things. Like listening to Motorhead, who are a bunch of speed freaks from Birmingham while she’s running down a shack. Or cutting to this Buddhist nun’s monastery, and you’ve got a Marty Robbins cowboy ballad playing.“
The film is, in a sense, a sort of weird cultural collage says Karan. “I had the sort of structure to begin with in a sense. I’m kind of attracted to almost this Douglas Sirk type 1950s kind of lighting.” He also feels that this film is kind of an ode to John Walters and Divine, who for him stood for all outsiders. “She’s my hero. And I love what John Walters says about Divine: Divine didn’t want to be a woman. Divine wanted to be Godzilla.”
Our reporters are on the ground in Cannes, France, to bring you exclusive content from the 77th Cannes Film Festival—explore our coverage here.
