Kirti Kulhari has spent more than 15 years in front of the camera. With Kinaare, she steps behind it as well. The film, her first as a feature producer, is set to premiere at the Dharamshala International Film Festival.
Kulhari also acts in the film, which made the job unlike anything she had done before. She was responsible for the unit, the running of the set and the creative supervision, while still having to perform. In an exclusive conversation with The Times of India, she described that as both the hardest and most instructive part.
Control is only half the job
Her original reason for producing, she said, was simple: to be at the centre of everything, with no decision out of reach. The shoot quickly complicated that plan. Producing, she learned, is a “fine balance” between taking charge and stepping back.
Because a production runs on people, art and creativity, holding every thread is not just hard; it runs against how the work breathes. The skill, Kulhari found, was knowing which threads to release.
Learning to be everywhere at once
For the first two days, she tried to keep pace with the actor in her. Then she let go of that rhythm and stayed for every shot, watching the monitor and checking that people and processes were okay.
That is not her usual style. As she put it, she is not one to stay on set if there is a break of more than ten minutes. Producing changed that. The experience came during Navratri, which gave her an image for the juggling act. She said she felt “like Durga Ma with so many hands,” and that the scale of multitasking amazed her.
What the journey taught her:
- Producing is a negotiation between control and surrender.
- Staying present across departments beats retreating into the actor’s bubble.
- Perfectionism is not a finish line worth chasing.
The myth of the perfect finish
Kulhari describes the eight to nine months from shoot through post-production as an intense period of learning. A part of her, she said, always wants to give her best, and that instinct had shaded into perfectionism.
The experience, in her words, revealed “the myth that perfectionism is.” By the time Kinaare was ready for its festival premiere, the lesson had become personal: loosen expectations, and let go of fixed ideas about how things should be.
Why this matters for Hindi cinema
Actors stepping into producing is a growing move in the industry, changing who shapes the story and how films get made. Kulhari’s account is a reminder that the producer’s chair is not just about power. It is about responsibility, adaptation and trust.
For fans waiting on Kinaare, the DIFF premiere will be the first look at that balance.
Source: The Times of India