Paakhi Tyrewala: I'm lucky that Priyanka Chopra backed me

Debutante director Paakhi Tyrewala talks about taking her Sikkimese film, which is produced by PeeCee, to the Toronto International Film Festival
Priyanka Chopra's Sikkimese production, 'Pahuna', which marks the directorial debut of Paakhi Tyrewala, will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 7. It's India's first feature film in Sikkimese to be selected for the prestigious fest.

"Priyanka wanted to greenlight a film industry in Sikkim even though it didn't make sense monetarily.We worked with untrained actors who underwent extensive workshops with my mum, Veena Mehta, a National School of Drama graduate," informed Paakhi, adding that her film is about children but not just for them.
"The Toronto premiere news didn't sink in for two weeks but that's again where Priyanka comes in. I didn't want it to be just a regional film; it had to be world cinema. PeeCee said she would take it places and has followed through on the promise. Both of us will attend the premiere along with her mother and co producer, Madhu Chopra," she said. When asked about her rather unusual choice for a debut film, when most filmmakers go for commercial fare, Palki admitted that she had been tempt ed to go the com mercial way too.
“There is a script that everybody loved which I will be doing next, a mainstream romance-drama. I had promised myself 13 years ago, when I was living in the Northeast, that I would make a film for Sikkim. If I'd made a commercial film first and it hadn't done well, there's no way I'd have made a film like Pahuna next. I was extremely lucky that Priyanka backed me," Paakhi reasons.
Did her husband (Abbas Tyrewala, whose directorial debut coincided with Imran Khan's acting first Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na) have inputs? "Abbas is involved at every step. I go to him with a script, showed him the edit even before the producers. He's also my teacher, I was his first assistant. I learnt writing from him before we fell in love and got married. He's still my mentor," she revealed.