On a sidewalk somewhere near the IndieWire offices, there’s a plaque with a quote from Muriel Rukeyser: “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” Of the many plaques in the area around the New York Public Library, this is the one that “Lost Ladies” (aka “Laapataa Ladies” as it’s also known) director Kiran Rao walked past on her way to our interview about the award-winning film that became India’s Oscar submission for Best International Feature. “I thought that was so telling,” Rao said, about the plaque.
“That’s one of our great strengths as a species, that we’re able to tell stories, to imagine futures, and it makes me really excited as a director to be part of that.” Rao has been working consistently in the storytelling business since the late ’90s, when she was an assistant director on Ashutosh Gowariker’s “Lagaan” (the most recent Indian film to be shortlisted at the Oscars , over 20 years ago). She continued as an A.
D. and producer throughout the 2000s, but her last and only feature as director, “Dhobi Ghat,” came out in 2011. Like any director driven by story, she was waiting for the right one; it just took longer than expected, and Rao admits she was content to bide her time, still producing and raising her son.
“My interest, like I suppose any director, is in a story that at once is extremely personal, but also something that’s universally relatable and speaks to something that we experience as a society or as peopl.
