Actor Indira Tiwari plays the lead in Spying Stars, the new film from acclaimed director Vimukthi Jayasundara. The film will have its World Premiere at the Busan International Film Festival next week. In an exclusive interaction with Hindustan Times, the actor opened up about her character, the experience of working with Jayasundara, and more. (Excerpts)

Spying Stars at Busan

Speaking about the selection at Busan, Indira says, “It is a dream-come-true moment. It sounds historic as well because this year, the Busan Film Festival has also announced its competition section, so I am super excited. About five years ago, my first feature film premiered at Busan, but that time, I could not attend because of the pandemic. So, going to the festival this time, finally, is a great feeling.”

She adds, “I haven’t watched the film yet, and I will be watching it at the World Premiere! It will be a surprise for me, I know, but it will also be a memorable experience. I come from theatre, and this is my first international project, my first English film. It is a step towards breaking the boxes of what I can do as an actor, that the industry thinks of me… and now I am representing my film on a global level. I had this image of standing at the top of a mountain with a flag, and then hoisting the flag on top! (smiles)”

Indira shares that she did not know much about Sri Lankan filmmaker Vimukthi Jayasundara before, and getting the call for this project was a wonderful surprise. “I got a call for the film from a friend who had a discussion with the director about this character. She thought of me first, and I was told that this is an English film. I was okay from the get-go, and that’s how the film happened.”

Spying Stars follows Anandi (played by Indira), a 32-year-old scientist who has come to a foreign land to fulfil her ailing father’s last wish: to spread his ashes in the river, which was once familiar to him. She is held captive in a mountain resort converted into a quarantine centre, where drones hover over the skies, cameras follow her every move, and death haunts silently through the halls. Her loneliness serves as a crucible where memory, paranoia, and loss intersect.

‘Vimukthi Jayasundara had immense faith in me’

Anandi speaks in English, but Jayasundara was clear that he did not want Indira to learn anything new for the film. The actor talks about the experience of working with the acclaimed filmmaker and said, “He had immense faith in me and did not want me to stress on the language. Vimukthi Sir has his own style, his own way of working, which was so interesting. With him, there was a shared understanding from the very first day on shoot, with the character and how he is going to interpret her reality. As a person, I am expressive. In his films, characters express themselves in a different way. The action is involved, but it is a space created in his frame.”

“In his films, the action is different. As an actor, it is an immersive process where I have to be completely present to the demands of the scene. I found that really interesting,” she adds.

In Spying Stars, Indira takes on the role of a scientist. She says as actors, the profession in itself demands some kind of invention- of character, of a constructed reality. “As an actor, we are isolated in so many ways, creating a character from scratch. An actor is aware all the time, which is something that I brought into my character of a scientist in Spying Stars. This film is a journey of realisation for her character.”

Spying Stars asks the question: How do we retain our humanity in a time of pervasive voyeurism and technological control? Talking about the film, Indira says, “We are surrounded by so much logic and machines. It seems impossible to go on with our daily lives with these machines; we are constantly dependent on upgrading ourselves. We never want to fall behind, and in that race… we are granting access to the machines. We must know when to stop, to know the limit of access.”

“Spying Stars takes on from that idea of human dependency and interrogates what it means to be human in this age and time,” she adds. “Even with AI and so much happening today, there is a spirituality that is deeply human and cannot be recreated. It cannot be influenced by another person; it is deeply personal and humane. That is something the film takes on, a journey that this character takes on.”