Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari: I was yearning for the love from the audience for ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’

On August 18, it will be a year since Junglee Pictures and BR Studios released ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’. The film, revolving around Kriti Sanon’s character Bitti, was a saccharine sweet, yet realistic spin on relationships between friends, parents and children, and of course, love. Set in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, the film was adapted from a book that director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari had chanced upon during one of her trips at a bookstall on an airport.Co-written by her husband Nitesh Tiwari and Shreyas Jain, the film offered a fresh perspective on romance, laced with memorable dialogue, relatable characters and palatable music. In the last one year, Ashwiny has won several awards for the film, including the award for the Best Director at the Filmfare Awards this year.
Talking about her whirlwind journey with ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’, Ashwiny says, “It’s funny to even think how I was trying to figure the release last year around this time. I was giving ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’ its finishing touches and running around to get everything sorted before the deadline. I was under tremendous pressure. It’s only in the week of release that you begin to feel that you don’t want to let the audience down. You don’t want them to say, ‘Ek hi film banake chhod deti to accha tha.’ I was yearning for the love from the audience for the film and my work. The whole of 2018 has been spent picking up awards and just basking in the sheer love and recognition that the film has fetched me. It feels nice to get complimented by young assistants that they like my work. I feel great that somewhere someone will get inspired and encouraged to make a career in filmmaking, regardless of where they come from.”