Richa Chadha launches programme for women gaffers

Actress Richa Chadha along with producer-director Shuchi Talati has set-up an incubation programme for women who hope to work as gaffers in the film industry through a programme called 'Undercurrent Lab'.

The special programme was launched on Monday with the objective of introducing more female gaffers in Hindi films. In its first year, the 'Undercurrent Lab' will focus on training 10 women (selected through an interview process) in lighting for cinema. It will start with a first-of-its-kind, hands-on workshop, where the trainees will learn the art from gaffers and cinematographers from the industry.

After the week-long crash course, the girls will be sent out on the field, to work on film sets as trainees. Two of the 10 girls will be placed on the nearly all-women crew on Richa and Ali Fazal's maiden production 'Girls will be girls' which starts shooting from October.

Commenting on the occasion, Richa said in a statement, "When we set out to have an all-women team, we found that there's virtually no women who work in the lighting departments in Hindi films. So our associate, Tanya Negi came up with the idea for this workshop.

"We are starting this training programme for women which aims to increase the participation of women behind the camera. I hope that the initiative seeds in a much larger change in the way things work in this industry. "The special programme is a joint partnership between the Women in Film and Television Association, India (WIFT) and one of the largest lighting and grip equipment providers in Bollywood 'Light N Light'.

Shuchi Talati added, "We applied for a grant at Berlinale Talent Footprints in February this year to set up this Lab, and won! The 'Undercurrent lab' will give the opportunity of making a solid career in the lighting department in the film industry, to our 10 candidates who have been chosen after a careful series of interviews. We are thankful to folks at Arri, Berlinale, Light and Light and Gratitude House for coming on board to help us pro-bono." The 'Undercurrent Lab' will roll from June 13 to June 18.