Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

The film highlights conversations between three couples who are about to get married. Instead of how their home is going to look or planning the wedding, these intimate chats go to a deeper level of what the ‘marriage’ itself, beyond the wedding will entail for both.  With each couple, the film unpacks brave, progressive conversation that many are too shy or scared to have. There’s a conversation about adoption. One about mental health. Another about a young male professional who wants to give up his well-paying job to bootstrap his own start-up. From the perspective of a largely conservative Indian society, all three conversations are uncomfortable and difficult. The film, however, tries to normalise the inherent discomfort of these topics by keeping the conversations real and authentic.  At its core the film highlights a subtle, but critical, difference: couples need to have the ‘marriage conversation’ before the wedding, not after.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

In India, the big fat wedding overshadows all else, with little time or space for even the couple to talk about what awaits them after. However, this day is just a small part of a very important journey - marriage.  Not surprisingly, with all the focus on the wedding itself, there are often unpleasant ‘surprises’ in store for both once the marriage begins, irrespective of whether it is an ‘arranged marriage’ or a ‘love marriage’. This film, which released just before the traditional ‘wedding season’ in India, challenges this practice by portraying candid, straight-from-the-heart style pre-nuptial chats between three different couples about topics that are typically taboo in the country – mental health, adoption, and a man not being the breadwinner, going against the norms of patriarchy - to emphasise the criticality of having the hard ‘marriage conversations’ before the wedding. 

Tell the jury anything relevant about the direction. Do not name the director.

Since the film deals with sensitive subjects, the director drew upon personal experiences to convey the spirit of the script. S/he drew from his/her own life for much of the dialogue, and reworked them constantly to make them conversational yet powerful and dignified. At the script level, s/he rearranged the linearity of the narrative so that the conversations would flow seamlessly for a more fluid storytelling. Since performances were key, s/he rehearsed extensively with the cast before the shoot to make them heartfelt and realistic. Even the spaces were selected based on the backstories created for the characters – one couple is in a public space, as per convention, another in the privacy of their kitchen, and a third in the intimacy of their car. At the same time, the director created different tonalities of each conversation to ensure that each character felt respected and empowered in their own way