Tahira Kashyap says she's glad her film Sharmaji Ki Beti took four-and-half years to make; here's why

Author and filmmaker Tahira Kashyap after having helmed two short films in now ready to maker he debut as a feature film director. Her film called Sharmaji Ki Beti has been 4 and a half years in the making even though it was announced just last year.

Tahir got talking about the several roadblocks that her film hit during production for personal, professional and later pandemic induced reasons, in a recent interview with India Today and said that the project was greenlit back in 2017.

In 2018, Tahira was diagnosed with stage zero of breast cancer but that didn’t stop her from working on the project. The filmmaker while undergoing a mastectomy was simultaneously busy with the pre-production of Sharmaji Ki Beti. Unfortunately, things didn’t pan out at the time.

“It has taken me forever to make this film. I wrote this film in 2016 and in 2017 it got the green light. Then in 2018, I was diagnosed with cancer, but I was still going for pre-production during my chemo sections, but unfortunately, it didn't go ahead,” She told the publication.

The filmmaker said that after this the film changed several hands in terms of studio partners and ultimately the pandemic hit and delayed the project further. Tahira, however, remained firmly attached to her vision and doesn’t regret that the project took such a long time to pan out. “I am very glad it took four and a half years. It is closest to what I had set my heart on. What happens is when there are people who are betting money on your project, then you have to include their vision. All these years there were a lot of people who came on board, had their own vision and I worked on that, made drafts to their likings. But I am glad we didn’t make the film that time because that version was not true to its intent,” she said.

Sharmaji Ki Beti stars Sayami Kher, Sakshi Tanwar and Divya Dutta in key roles. The slice-of-life-comedy began production in September 2021 and is yet to get a release date.