Contrary to popular impression, director Rajshree Ojha says her film Aisha is not women-centric even though it has a woman protagonist. She also feels that Bollywood has copied Hollywood films for too long and it's time to reverse the trend.
"The protagonist may be a woman, but it's not a women-centric film. It's an ensemble piece and a romantic comedy," says Rajshree.
The 28-year-old director, who has studied film-making in New York University and did her masters in film direction from American Film Institute, wants to reverse the practice of copying Hollywood movies.
"Enough of Hollywood films have been copied to make Bollywood hits. I want to take a Bollywood film and make a film in Hollywood," she said.
The Sonam Kapoor-Abhay Deol starrer Aisha is her first commercial venture after Chaurahen (2007), an English film starring Soha Ali Khan, which traveled to a lot of film festivals, but never got released in the theaters.
"Chaurahen was on urban relationships. It had three different stories and in one of them, Soha Ali Khan played the lead. It was in English and was tagged as an art film and never got released in the theaters," shares Rajshree.
Aisha, produced by Anil Kapoor's daughter Rhea, is based on British novel Emma. Rajshree tweaked it to make a film because she found the story very relevant to Indian society.
"I wanted to make a film on urban relationships. I never thought to make a comedy. When I was reading Emma, I found that it was so relevant to our society and I decided make a film on it," says Rajshree.
However, it wasn't a cakewalk for Rajshree. "It was a little difficult to get a producer as people were apprehensive about the film and me too. I am actually very grateful to the Kapoors that they liked the film and kept it to my vision," says the director.
"It took me four-and-a-half years before that because I went around pitching my film to various production houses. Sonam was the first actor whom I approached with the film," she adds.
The director decided to make Sonam the protagonist of her film even though she hadn't seen her work.
"We always wanted to have a young face. That time Saawariya had just released. I didn't see the film but had seen a lot of photographs and decided to make Sonam the protagonist of my film," she reveals.
Asked if she is planning to sign Sonam's father Anil Kapoor in any of her future projects, Rajshree says, "I don't know because I don't have any script in my mind and I don't write any script keeping any actors in mind. May be later."
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