'More Than Tokenism': Sulagna Chatterjee On Crowdfunding Her Feminist Food Film

When Sulagna Chatterjee made it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list earlier this year, she celebrated by posting a throwback to her childhood. She recounted her early days spent devouring Ekta Kapoor serials and Hindi cinema. For Chatterjee, storytelling isn’t just about escapism—it’s about “losing yourself to find yourself.” In an intimate interview with SheThePeopleTV, the writer-director (Adulting, Feels Like Ishq) opens up about her cinematic influences, the politics of joy in queer narratives, and her upcoming crowdfunded film Olakh—a tribute to the women who taught her rebellion through quiet acts like cooking.

The first time Sulagna understood cinema’s magic, she was six years old, watching The Sound of Music on a pirated DVD in Kolkata. But it was Titanic’s grandeur that sparked her curiosity about craft: “How did they build that ship? How do you make thousands of people believe?”

Her childhood was spent rewriting endings and staging living-room performances, "Jack never died in my versions. I’d force my uncle’s friends to listen to my alternate plots. Even then, I knew stories could bend reality.” Yet her true education came from unlikely teachers: Ekta Kapoor’s melodramas and her mother’s tattered Hindi film magazines. “I learned early that storytelling isn’t about prestige—it’s about making people feel.”

Her breakout projects—Adulting’s messy roommate dynamics, Feels Like Ishq’s queer first love—share a signature: ordinary moments laced with quiet defiance. 

"I’ve always gravitated towards women-led narratives, but not in a loud, demonstrative way. I think of my storytelling as a soft rebellion."

Sulagna explains, “It’s not necessarily driven by a ‘look at this strong woman’ archetype. It’s quieter. More lived-in. More flawed. My stories are micro acts of feminism. When you’re against all odds but choose joy – that’s rebellion. Screw everything, I am going to be the best version of myself."

This philosophy crystallised during her mother’s cancer recovery: "After beating cancer in 2020, Mom stopped compromising. She’d say, 'If I want to eat something, I’ll make it just for myself. I don’t care if you like it.' That shift inspired Olakh."

Olakh – Cooking Up Liberation 

Her latest crowdfunded project, Olakh comes from a place of emotional excavation. It follows two women reclaiming agency through food. “It’s about the recipes we abandon to please others. It’s about women reclaiming spaces through the domesticated but radical act of cooking. Like wearing sleeveless after years of hiding your arms – the world may not notice, but you know,” she explains. 

Olakh also draws from her grandmother's experience. "She (Sulagna's grandmother) got married very young. The only thing she controlled was her house - every few years, new paint, new furnishings. For women like her who've built entire lives around domestic spaces, what happens when that house becomes empty after 40 years of companionship? Olakh plays with the emotional burden of that physical emptiness."

But the road to production has been fraught. A producer rejected the script for featuring non-vegetarian food (“Imagine reducing centuries of cultural identity to ‘too spicy’!”). Crowdfunding forced her to confront uncomfortable truths: “You realise who’s performatively ‘woke’ when they ignore your campaign."

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Queer stories beyond the checklist 

In an industry where queer representation often oscillates between token inclusion or trauma-heavy stereotypes, Sulagna advocates for stories that embrace nuance, joy, and the messy reality of queer lives. "I don't believe that every representation is a good representation. We are so done with the bare minimum. We don't want to say at least you have put us in the narrative' anymore."

"We want more. We want more than just tokenistic behaviour."

There has at least been an honest effort over the past few years. But there are times that studios or project heads or producers would use marginalised communities in narratives just to have a chip on their own shoulder."

On what's needed: "Until we have more representation in the studios and platforms themselves, it will be very difficult to say yes to authentic stories. We need producers who are sensitised enough to know what kind of stories to tell, who gets to tell these stories, and how to follow through the entire process."

In her final message, for the girl rewriting Titanic endings in her Kolkata living room, she says what she's always known: "Bro, we got here. We're telling honest stories, stupidly fun stories. And we're just getting started."