Writer, filmmaker and poet Barnali Ray Shukla speaks to Vinta Nanda about poetry, independent cinema, Satya, marriage, ambition, and the long journey of building an artistic identity beyond labels, privilege, expectations and convention.

There are filmmakers who move from one project to another, and there are filmmakers who move through life gathering stories, experiences, landscapes and emotions, allowing each to shape the next work they create. Barnali Ray Shukla belongs firmly to the latter category. A writer, filmmaker and poet, she has quietly built a body of work that spans fiction features, award-winning documentaries and published poetry, while remaining steadfastly committed to her own voice.

Her journey is anything but conventional. Born into a Bengali family, raised across different parts of India because of her father's transferable job, academically trained in Botany and Microbiology, and once headed towards a future in scientific research, Barnali eventually chose storytelling over laboratories. The decision took her to Bombay at a time when television and cinema were undergoing transformative change. She began her career at Plus Channel, worked as an assistant director on Satya, witnessed first-hand the emergence of some of the most influential voices in Indian cinema, and then went on to carve her own path as a filmmaker.

Her first feature film, Kuch Love Jaisa, starring Shefali Shah and Rahul Bose, arrived ahead of its time, and second Joon (2022) is running on Amazon Prime. Her documentaries, including Liquid Borders, Once Upon a Sky and All Is Well, have travelled to film festivals across the world, documenting landscapes, borders, communities and lives that are rapidly changing. Alongside her work in cinema, Barnali has nurtured an equally significant literary practice. Her poetry collection Apostrophe won the RL Poetry Award, and her work continues to appear in leading anthologies and journals.

What makes Barnali particularly fascinating is her refusal to fit neatly into any category. She is equally comfortable discussing poetry and biotechnology, independent cinema and mainstream dreams, marriage and artistic autonomy. In an industry often obsessed with visibility and recognition, she has consciously chosen a slower, more independent route.

In this candid conversation, Barnali speaks to me about childhood, poetry, science, cinema, Satya, Saurabh Shukla, independence, ambition and the importance of remaining true to oneself.

Here are the excerpts from the interview:

Vinta Nanda: Let's begin with poetry because that seems to be the place where everything starts for you. What role does poetry play in your life today?

Barnali Ray Shukla: Poetry has always been my refuge. Every other creative space eventually becomes influenced by markets, expectations, audiences, financiers or institutions. Poetry remains the one place where I can be completely honest. It is where I return whenever I want to understand myself better. I often describe poetry as a confidante because it allows me to express thoughts and emotions that might never survive a production meeting or a boardroom discussion. Many ideas are considered impractical, unmarketable or too personal in other spaces. Poetry gives them a home.

At the same time, poetry has deeply influenced my filmmaking. It teaches perspective. In cinema, we think in terms of frames, shots and visual scale. Poetry allows me to move from a vast landscape to an intimate emotional detail within a few lines. It sharpens observation. It also demands honesty because there is nowhere to hide. A poem cannot blame budget constraints or production challenges. It succeeds or fails entirely on its own terms.

Vinta Nanda: Your childhood seems to have played an important role in shaping the storyteller you became.

Barnali Ray Shukla: Absolutely. My father worked for Indian Oil, which meant constant transfers. We lived in different cities, towns and border regions. Looking back, I realise I was exposed to many Indias rather than just one. That experience has influenced everything I write and film today.

One of the most important influences, however, came from my mother. Because of concerns about schooling in one of the places where we were posted, she decided to teach me at home before I formally entered school. She taught me English, Hindi and Bangla simultaneously. Then she encouraged me to write letters to my grandparents. Every week I would write postcards describing ordinary things — what I had eaten, what I had seen, what I was thinking.

At the time it felt like a family exercise. Today I recognise that those letters were my first lessons in writing. Different grandparents required different conversations. I learned instinctively that communication changes depending on who is receiving it. That understanding eventually became storytelling.

Vinta Nanda: And yet you chose science before cinema.

Barnali Ray Shukla: For a long time I believed science would be my future. I studied Botany, specialised in Microbiology and Plant Tissue Culture, and biotechnology seemed to be the most exciting field available. Everyone around me assumed that the next step would be research, perhaps even moving abroad.

Then something unexpected happened. During a college debate, I was asked to examine the ethical concerns surrounding biotechnology. Initially I resisted. I thought the future was obvious and that questioning it was unnecessary. But once I started reading, I encountered ideas that fundamentally changed my thinking. Questions about power, access, inequality and responsibility began to emerge. I realised that every technological breakthrough also carried consequences.

Around the same time, I became increasingly aware that storytelling occupied an equally important space in my life. There was a parallel version of me quietly writing, participating in debates and entering creative competitions. Eventually that side became impossible to ignore.

Vinta Nanda: What drew you specifically towards cinema?

Barnali Ray Shukla: I realised I wanted to create worlds rather than report on them. Journalism interested me intellectually, but fiction fascinated me emotionally. I wanted to explore people, contradictions, relationships and possibilities.

Joining Academy 18 was a turning point. It was one of the earliest professional training spaces for television and film. Suddenly storytelling became a legitimate career option. By the end of the programme I had several job opportunities, but Bombay represented fiction, cinema and imagination. So I came here.

Vinta Nanda: You arrived during an extraordinary period in Indian cinema and eventually found yourself working on Satya.

Barnali Ray Shukla: None of us understood at the time what Satya would become. That's the truth. We were simply trying to make a good film. The atmosphere was incredibly exciting because everyone involved was discovering themselves creatively. Many people who later became major figures in Indian cinema were still finding their voices.

What I remember most is the hunger. Nobody was operating from a position of security. Everyone wanted to tell stories. Everyone wanted to prove themselves. There was a tremendous sense of possibility.

Vinta Nanda: And somewhere during that period, Saurabh Shukla entered your life.

Barnali Ray Shukla: (Laughs) Yes, that's where the Shukla happened.

I was actually known among my friends as the person most likely never to marry. Naturally, life had other plans. What began as friendship slowly evolved into something deeper. The friendships that emerged around Satya were built through endless conversations about cinema, storytelling and life. We spent hours together after work discussing films and ideas.

What attracted me to Saurabh was not fame or visibility. Satya had not even released when we got married. What attracted me was sincerity, intelligence, talent and a genuinely progressive outlook towards life. We were friends before anything else.

Looking back, I think that foundation explains why we are still together after nearly three decades.

Vinta Nanda: Yet you made some very deliberate decisions to preserve your independence after marriage.

Barnali Ray Shukla: That was important to me. I didn't want my professional identity to be built on my husband's success. In fact, I made a decision that probably cost me opportunities. I decided not to work with producers who approached me because of Saurabh.

Then Satya became a phenomenon and suddenly everyone wanted to work with him. Ironically, my decision became even more difficult to maintain. But I never regretted it.

I needed to discover what I could achieve on my own. I wanted whatever success or failure came my way to belong entirely to me.

Vinta Nanda: Your work has largely remained independent even though you clearly have access to the mainstream industry.

Barnali Ray Shukla: That's because independence is a choice, not a limitation. Many people assume independent filmmakers are simply waiting to enter the mainstream. That's not necessarily true.

I love mainstream cinema. I grew up on Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. I have scripts that require substantial budgets and I hope to make them someday. But independence allows me to explore subjects that might otherwise become compromised. It allows me to remain curious.

What matters to me is not scale but authenticity.

Vinta Nanda: Your documentaries seem particularly concerned with preserving disappearing realities.

Barnali Ray Shukla: Very much so. Documentary filmmaking entered my life during a period when I was questioning many things. What I discovered was the extraordinary power of observation. Places change. Communities change. Borders change. Landscapes change.

When I look at films like Liquid Borders or Once Upon a Sky, I see more than documentaries. I see records. Decades from now, they will show future generations what these places looked like, how people lived and what anxieties defined our times.

That responsibility excites me enormously.

Vinta Nanda: What strikes me most is your refusal to choose one identity. Poet, filmmaker, wife, independent artist, aspiring mainstream director—you seem determined to keep all those parts alive simultaneously.

Barnali Ray Shukla: Perhaps because life itself refuses neat categories. Poetry informs my filmmaking. Filmmaking informs my understanding of people. Marriage teaches patience and perspective. Failure teaches resilience. Success teaches very little.

I've never believed that one aspect of life should cancel another. For me, the challenge has always been integration rather than selection. I don't want to abandon poetry for cinema, or independent cinema for mainstream cinema, or personal relationships for professional ambition. The goal is not balance. The goal is honesty. If I remain honest to the work and to myself, everything else eventually finds its place.

Watch the full video interview below:

What emerges from this conversation is the portrait of an artist who has consistently chosen the more difficult road. Barnali Ray Shukla could have pursued science, embraced institutional security, leveraged proximity to power, or taken easier professional shortcuts. Instead, she chose uncertainty, independence and a lifelong commitment to storytelling in all its forms. Whether through poetry, documentary or fiction, her work is united by a deep curiosity about people and the worlds they inhabit. In an era increasingly defined by speed, visibility and instant validation, Barnali's journey serves as a reminder that meaningful artistic lives are often built patiently, one story, one film and one poem at a time. Her latest fiction feature film Joon (2022), is on Amazon Prime and a must watch.