Bornila Chatterjee is a writer and filmmaker. Her feature film “Let’s Be Out, The Sun Is Shining” premiered at the 2012 New York Indian Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. Previous short films include “Devil Mambo” and “White Lilies.” She is a 2014 fellow of the Sundance Institute/Mumbai Mantra Screenwriters Lab.

“The Hungry” will premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival on September 14.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

BC: “The Hungry” is loosely based on “Titus Andronicus” by Shakespeare. We took the play’s villain — Tamora, Queen of the Goths — and turned her into our protagonist, a single mother and bride-to-be called Tulsi Joshi who comes to her own wedding seeking revenge for the brutal murder of her oldest son.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

BC: A wedding is inherently dramatic. It forces a whole bunch of people to come together for a certain number of days and often brings out the worst in people. There’s something twisted about a bride coming to her own wedding with the express desire to annihilate the groom and his family. That really appealed to me as well as my cowriters, Tanaji Dasgupta and Kurban Kassam.

At the textual level we all had the same thought: how different would this story be if Tamora was the protagonist of her journey and not the nemesis in someone else’s?

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

BC: How we end up hurting ourselves when we chase power and blind love and revenge.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

BC: The play has over 20 characters and we had to figure out how to condense the story into something filmable within the micro budget that we had. We hacked away at the play, doing away with most of Shakespeare’s characters and seriously streamlining the original plot. But the closer we got to production, we realized that the real challenge was entirely different — how were we going to mount a big fat wedding with the time and the budget that we had?

That’s where the creativity and resourcefulness of the whole team — our producers, the cinematographer, the gaffer, the art team, the costume team — really came into play. Even some of our actors pitched in. Everyone involved in the look of the film was determined to make that wedding — which is the majority of the movie — feel as special as possible within our time and budgetary constraints.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

BC: Our film came out of a UK-India initiative called Microwave International, which was co-organized by the UK’s Film London and India’s Cinestaan. To commemorate Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, Microwave and Cinestaan partnered up to fund one Asian micro-budget film adaptation of a Shakespeare play.

In the summer of 2015, six teams were selected for an intensive workshop in London — three scripts from India and three from the UK. After the workshop we all had about a month to revise our first drafts, submit a production proposal, and make our pitches. That winter, we found out that our script had gotten the green light, and a year later we were in production.

W&H: What does it mean for you to have your film play at the Toronto International Film Festival?

BC: I am thrilled, of course! The lineup is amazing and it’s just crazy that our little movie gets to be a part of that.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

BC: Best advice: don’t censor yourself, let others do that for you. Marco Williams, one of my professors at Tisch always used to say that.

What’s the point in remembering the worst advice?

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

BC: Eat well. Read for pleasure. Being tough does not make you a jerk. Don’t be a jerk.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

BC: “Daisies” by Věra Chytilová, because it’s badass and brilliant!

W&H: There have been significant conversations over the last couple of years about increasing the amount of opportunities for women directors yet the numbers have not increased. Are you optimistic about the possibilities for change? Share any thoughts you might have on this topic.

BC: I am worried about the status quo. I am optimistic about change.