In Indian families, conversations, conflict and compromise all happen over a cup of chai. This simple ritual is the heart of Anvita Brahmbhatt’s 17-minute film, Over A Cup of Chai. It’s a labour of love, and has been selected to show at the New York Indian Film Festival 2025, beginning on 20 June. The director has also organised a screening in her home town, Ahmedabad, at The Kanoria Centre for Arts on 23 May.
The filmmaker draws from her personal experiences, memories and even the poems she’s read to build on the relationship between a mother and her adult daughter. Her early memories of her mother include the fact that she would need a cup of tea to start her day or have an important conversation.
“I felt like I did not see enough mother-daughter stories in Hindi cinema. Last year, I watched Goldfish, and it made me realise interesting work is being done in independent cinema,” said Brahmbhatt. Pushan Kriplani’s Goldfish (2023) explores this relationship through the prism of dementia.
“I, too, wanted to explore how women are labelled in various roles. I refuse to believe that individuals are black and white,” said Brahmbhatt, who studied at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in New York.
She captures the undercurrent of tension through her characters— the mother Saira (Ratna Pathak Shah) and daughter Nitya (Dalai). The movie starts with Nitya setting up her place, eating an apple while sitting on a swing, making sure the mirror is at the right angle, and sneaking in a look before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“You look good. You’ve put on a bit of weight though,” says Saira. It strikes a note with the viewer. A wry nod to the most common ice breaker that Indian parents resort to—the gaining and losing of weight. The comment sets the tone for the film and draws attention to the awkward relationship. Nitya’s eagerness to engage is at odds with Saira’s critical lens of her and her partner Aryan.
Saira’s reserved and even slightly cold demeanour adds to the tension, especially in contrast to the sensitive but headstrong Nitya. Her supportive partner Aryan, played by Danesh Razvi, who comes home to meet Saira over a cup of tea, is the perfect foil. He gives the two women space to have a conversation that is long overdue.
Most of the movie takes place in the kitchen or the garden on a lazy afternoon. And by the end, the creases in the relationship are ironed out over tea.
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Literary inspiration
One of Brahmbhatt’s inspirations for her film was journalist and author Nilanjana Bhowmick’s book, Lies Our Mothers Told Us: The Indian Woman’s Burden (2022).
“It opened my eyes to the generational trauma that women have gone through. But it also helped me understand how we often want our mothers to evolve and become a certain way, without doing any work on ourselves,” said the director.
Brahmbhatt even bought copies of Bhowmick’s 2024 book, How Not to Be a Superwoman, for people around her to read. It helped the director view her relationship with her mother in a more nuanced manner. She started writing after reading the first book, but the second book helped refine her thought process.
After finishing her film, she shared it with Bhowmick.
“While watching the film, I was reminded of my own relationship with my mother, which I wrote about in my first book. I’ve always felt compelled to please her—understanding her struggles as a woman trying to succeed in a patriarchal society, swimming against the tide while pulling her daughters along,” said Bhowmick.
She found an expression of her own struggles in Brahmbhatt’s film.
“In the end, all we can hope for is to begin breaking down the walls our mothers had to build—walls that helped them survive, and ensured we survived and thrived too,” said the author.
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How to play the mother
Brahmbhatt started writing her script in April last year and was ready with her final cut by December. The shoot itself lasted three days, but the process of writing the script and getting her dream cast and crew took months.
It was her father who stepped up to finance the film, despite his initial misgivings. Brahmbhatt acknowledges that this is a privilege not available to most independent filmmakers. “He is a businessman, and he knows that this is not exactly a profit-making venture, unless an OTT buys the film,” she said.
She and Pathak-Shah had a difference of opinion on how to play Saira. “Through the disagreements, I learnt how to somewhat stand my ground. Sometimes, it is difficult to be taken seriously as a woman, even in the eyes of other women. Shah comes with her own set of experiences, and there is also the difference in ways actors work here and abroad,” said Brahmbhatt, stating that a director’s vision is paramount in the American spaces, as per what she’s learnt at NYU through professors and fellow filmmakers.
Over A Cup of Chai is Brahmbhatt’s second film. Her first project was The Documented Indian (2021), a 15-minute film that follows two siblings. In the film, she brought together stories of the 2002 Gujarat riots and the protests that happened in 2019 over the Citizenship Amendment Act.
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Looking for a larger audience
Brahmbhatt was inspired by the award-winning Girls Will Be Girls, and the kind of support Ali Fazal and Richa Chadha lend to the film has given her hope. Directed by Shuchi Talati, the film is also based on a mother-daughter relationship, with a selfish, yet lonely mother portrayed by Kani Kusruti.
But she does not have rose-coloured lenses when it comes to independent filmmaking. Brahmbhatt knows that Fazal and Chadha’s support is an exception, and not the rule.
“It is extremely hard to even reach out to big production houses. Payal Kapadia got celebrated after Cannes, but she too had to struggle to make her film. Right now, an independent director has to either make a co-production, or get an OTT to take the film or travel to film festivals,” said Brahmbhatt.
For now, the New York Indian Film Festival is her next step. She hopes it will help her find a larger audience and possible financiers for her next project.
This article is part of ThePrint’s series on independent films. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)