Directed by John McCrite, Pink Belt tells the story of Aparna Rajawat who went from being an athlete to a victim of abuse to teaching women the art of self-defense. The film itself is centered around Aparna’s attempt at achieving the Guinness World Record for the biggest self-defense session. But through that one event we learn how Aparna became the woman that she is, what are the things that she has endured, and how she found the zeal and courage to teach other women to be resilient in their own way. It is a deeply moving film and given the devolution of the state of women’s safety in India, it’s a movie that should be shown to everyone to hopefully add fuel to the movement of change that the women of this country are leading all on their own. I virtually sat down with John McCrite to talk about Aparna, why it has taken so long to bring her story to the silver screen, and more. So, give it a read.
How aware were you of the state of women in India before making the film & how has your opinion about the same changed after working with Aparna?
“I had heard of the Nirbhaya case and I was outraged when I learned the horrific details. Before shooting the film, I researched other cases. Aparna took us to a factory where we met women who had been raped by their husbands daily. There are no laws protecting married women in India from marital rape. We also visited a place run by acid-attack survivors called Shero’s Cafe. I heard real stories and spent time getting to know the survivors. It went from researching statistics to getting to know survivors. No words can describe the impact it had. When we would go to eat dinner at night, I saw mainly men out walking. Rarely did I see women. One Pink Belt woman, after working with Aparna, has traveled to seven states in India on her own. The change is happening because of this new generation of young women and men.”
Your film makes the Guinness World Records attempt as the anchor point but then goes in a variety of directions. So, how did you choose which aspects of Aparna’s life you wanted to show and what you couldn’t?
“The world record was the goal she wanted to achieve to bring awareness, but following her day to day was how we broke through the “professional facade” to get to know the real woman underneath the public figure. The story began to tell itself, the action of her life was “to overcome,” and “to heal through unity.” TJ Pederson, the editor, and I began to look for those actions in the scenes. She goes to the Shero’s Cafe to teach those women to fight. And in the last act of the film, they are on stage with her teaching self-defense to thousands of girls. That was healing. The same was true with the factory women, at the end of the film they are marching in the streets with torches, taking back the night. Anything that didn’t help drive those two actions we cut. We also looked for the obstacles Aparna had to overcome. In the world record event everything goes wrong, but she doesn’t give up. The way she deals with it shows her character. Aparna took a childhood tragedy and became a martial arts champion and then started teaching women self-defense. Each story was a microcosm of those actions. Overcoming and uniting.”
There are quite a few emotionally charged moments where Aparna and those around her are opening their hearts to you & talking about what they’ve faced & how they’re continuing to persevere. Are those moments as overwhelming for you while you’re shooting or editing the film as it is for us, the viewers?
“Yes. What bonded Aparna and me the most was both our mother’s died of cancer. We got close, sharing our grief. Right before she enters the stage for the world record, she is talking to me on camera and telling me her mother isn’t with her to see the most important moment of her life but she knows she is watching [her] from the sky. I realized it was my biggest moment too, making my first feature film, and my mother was watching me. Anytime you see Aparna cry in the film, I am a few feet away listening to her and crying with her. I am a survivor of rape. It happened to me in high school. I took Aparna to breakfast one day and I shared with her my story. She didn’t say anything at the time she just listened, but on camera months later she tells her story to her sisters. She had never told anyone. That was the most devastating moment of shooting for me and I cried from the gut. But it also healed me to hear her share her story. I knew I wasn’t alone. And Aparna isn’t alone.”
What were the risks of making this film? Because all the women in the film have endured so much? Did the thought ever cross your mind that making this film will put them in harm’s way again?
“Being a survivor myself, one of my biggest concerns was re-traumatizing the women. We had Mansi, the factory owner, sitting next to me at the factory and Shero’s Cafe, asking the women the questions. She selected the factory workers who wanted to share their stories and it was safe for them to share. Their husbands were no longer in their lives. Mansi was very good with them. She also had spent time with the women at the Shero’s Cafe. She knew them before we started shooting. It was all in Hindi so she asked the questions. The Shero’s speak to tourists daily answering questions and sharing their stories. They are part of a movement to shine a light on acid attacks. I was more worried for Aparna’s safety, because during the shooting, someone made a threat to her, by burning her motorcycle. I was worried for the safety of our crew too. But we hired two more crew members to help, acting as security, so there was safety in numbers. Aparna was never afraid. She said roaches run when you shine a light on them.”
Your movie highlights the fact that just self-defense isn’t enough to bring about change for women; rejection of patriarchal norms & systemic overhauling of public spaces that are male-dominated are the need of the hour. What was the process of developing that idea into one of the major themes of the film?
“Each time we filmed, I learned more. Aparna said her brothers thought it was their job to keep the sisters in line and prepare them to be married off into another family. The brothers saw them as sheep to keep in line. This is what the boys learned from their father. Their father was 21 and their mother was 12 when their marriage was arranged. Their mother had no self-determination. The boys learned from their father how they were supposed to treat women. The brothers were older than Aparna and if she didn’t do what she was told, they beat her severely or locked her in the bathroom in darkness. At the world record event she tells the crowd it starts in the home. If we want to change the nation, we must teach the boys. She says don’t ask what the girls are doing, ask what the boys are doing. It’s about teaching boys empathy. I see this in Aparna’s story with her brothers. They had no empathy. There is a Gandhi quote at the beginning of the film that says India won’t be free until women can walk freely on the roads at night. Aparna leads a night march at the end of the film, taking back the night. Taking back the roads. She is hope.”
Aparna’s story is inspirational enough to make a hundred biopics, but this is the first time she has been put on the silver screen. As a filmmaker, how powerful do you think cinema is as a medium to bring about societal change? And why do you think there aren’t enough stories about people like Aparna, especially in the Indian film industry?
“When you hear the news about a rape case, you think it’s horrible. When you meet a survivor of an acid attack via film or in person and they tell you how it felt and why the guy did it, you have empathy and it enrages you. It makes you say, “How can I help?” At every screening of the film, people come up to Aparna and me and ask how they can help. They want to show the film to their survivor groups or the students they teach. It’s a teaching tool. I remember seeing the Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman in school and it changed my life. It taught me about slavery and the civil rights movement in a way that reading about it in a textbook couldn’t. I think the movie studios feel guilty, they know they should do something so they will make one big movie about a subject like acid attacks, with one big star, and then feel they’ve done enough. They don’t see that each person has a unique story. Then it’s the independent filmmakers with lower budgets who tell the individual stories and it is harder to get the films seen. There isn’t a marketing budget. I have no money to market Pink Belt. It’s articles like this and word of mouth from social media that help to get independent films out there. But I think those independent films are better in many cases than the big budget versions. Because they aren’t as worried about getting the money back. It’s about telling the story.”
What or who are some of your greatest influences as a filmmaker?
“Alek Keshishian’s documentary, Truth or Dare, about Madonna inspired me when I was in my twenties. Jennie Livingston’s, Paris is Burning is the one that made me want to tell stories with my camera. On television, The Real World on MTV was revelatory for me. Especially showing the life of Pedro Zamora who was living with HIV/AIDS and eventually died. He changed lives by sharing his story in a docuseries. In a narrative film, Steven Spielberg, the way he uses a close-up on a person’s face to tell the story. That push-in on Roy Scheider’s face in Jaws when he realizes he’s seeing a shark attack. I love the close-up shots Jon Lile and Haley Watson captured in Pink Belt of the girls’ faces. Bryan Singer’s shot of Freddy Mercury entering the stage in Bohemian Rhapsody influenced me when Aparna walks on stage for the world record event. Except mine was live, there was no rehearsal, no CGI. If Anuj Pratap, the camera operator, fell going up the stairs with her, the shot would have been ruined. That’s why I love documentaries. It’s flying without a net. It’s the closest thing to live theater, which is where I started.”
The Guinness World Records attempt happened in 2020. Have you been in touch with Aparna since then? How has her life changed after that event and the making of this film?
“Two days after we shot the world record event, we flew home to the US, and a few weeks after that we were in lock-down. We had a cut of the film, but it didn’t work as well, because we needed to get more of her personal story, so when she walks up on stage at the end you want her to win because you know her. We went back to India after the pandemic and followed Aparna to her childhood home. We got to see her at the karate school and talk in depth about her career. Aparna and I are working on her book. We want to tell the stories that we couldn’t fit into the film. We are also in talks about a narrative film. We recently went to a sneak preview of Pink Belt in Palm Springs. We were driving over to the Mary Pickford theater and I said, “Can you believe it all started on a tour bus?” After the show people offered to help her spread the message. Because of the movie she is getting the needed outside help to teach in India. She was funding it all from her own savings. Now she is getting help to organize and fundraise.”
What kind of thoughts & opinions, overall, would you want audiences to walk away with after watching Pink Belt?
“There is a saying, one stick is easily broken, a bundle of sticks is unbreakable. I want people to know that they are not alone. And it’s not just in India, it happens all over the world. It’s not just women, it’s men too. We heal when we tell our stories to those who understand. We heal when we stand together and take care of each other; and when we march together and protest injustice. Unity is important and that is the message of the film. The unity of Aparna and her sisters in the film. The unity of the night march. Unity of the world record event. Aparna states in the beginning of the film, “I want to create a big sisterhood,” and I would include anyone who has suffered from sexual violence and their families who suffer with them.”
