Avinash Arun Dhaware on Three of Us: It was important to reset before Paatal Lok Season 2

Director Avinash Arun Dhaware's Three of Us stars Shefali Shah as Shailaja, a middle-aged woman with early-stage dementia journeying back to her childhood home in the Konkan.

Avinash Arun Dhaware is having a busy year. After the release of the web series School of Lies, a mystery drama set in a boarding school (Disney+ Hotstar) earlier this year, he is excited about the cinematic release of his second feature film as director. Three of Us, in cinemas now, stars Shefali Shah as Shailaja, a middle-aged woman with early-stage dementia journeying back to her childhood home in the Konkan with her husband (played Swanand Kirkire) where she reunites with her school friend Pradeep (played by Jaideep Ahlawat). The film gently explores issues related to past lives, memory, marriage and forgiveness.

Dhaware, who is also looking forward to the release of season 2 of ‘Paatal Lok’, spoke about this intimate film and his future work.

The film is largely shot in the beautiful setting of Vengurla in the Konkan region. As a cinematographer, co-writer of the film and its director, did the characters come to you first and did you then decide on the location?

The idea did come first. Earlier I wanted to make it in Marathi, but I didn't know who would produce a Marathi film like this. Slowly, after I started developing the film, I narrated the idea to a producer who liked it. In a couple of months, we wrote the screenplay with dialogues, casting happened and in the third month we started shooting.

For years, I wanted to do something related to memories, about a person whose memories are fading out. What kind of changes would that person go through? Personally, I most vividly remember my childhood and growing up years till I was 16 or 17. I'm 38 years old now. As you grow older, you feel so much and you know how to deal with those feelings in a way, but back then there wasn't any filter. But I am not sure why those childhood memories are most clear; are the ones you felt so intensely and are trying to go back to.

Then there were unsaid loves from youth, plus a couple of incidents that happened with my friends, and my mother’s mental illness. I had shot a couple of documentaries on schizophrenic patients long back. So, I wanted to do something related to mental health, but something gentler like memory fading away, which felt poetic in a way. If you erase memories, then your worries and traumas are gone too. Or maybe those memories don’t go. You don't know. These were the thoughts I was grappling with and that’s where the germ for Three of Us came from.

Jaideep Ahlawat’s character is vastly different from ‘Paatal Lok’, which you directed him in. What made you think of him to play the kind Pradeep Kamat?

He is the best actor, plus it's... my bias, my love, my conviction. Honestly, I don’t think too much before starting a film, which is why I am able to work so fast. I have done three projects back-to-back. School of Lies was a completely different show. Three Of Us is a completely different genre. I really don't think much. I just feel something and I just go ahead with it. Your convictions will follow. Even the pacing, long shots, number of takes was a decision I made on set. When I felt I had got it, I knew it. We shot the film in 25 days.

As you said, ‘Paatal Lok’, ‘School of Lies’ and ‘Three of Us’ are tonally and emotionally so different. What else are you working on?

That was essential for me, because after Paatal Lok, I was working on School of Lies. And the kind of show Paatal Lok is - one has to turn one’s soul in a completely different direction - I needed to come back to this space, to rejuvenate myself in a different way. It was also an important reset before getting ready for Paatal Lok season two, which is a beast. I was getting terrified when I read the script and this time, I'm the solo director on it. It has such intense action and an even denser narrative. It’s now getting completed in post-production.

Going back to 2014, I don’t know how my first film Killa got made. It was a fluke. I was very young at the time. I was a cinematographer who came to Mumbai and suddenly, in a year's time, Killa happened and my first release was my own film. I was confused and wondered if I really have the talent to make a film or was it a fluke. So, making a second film was always at the back of my mind.

Three of Us is a melancholic film but it's not sad. It’s got tenderness and childlike amusement through Shailaja.

I am working on a couple more feature film ideas. I don't think I'm going to touch the show format in a hurry, because the show format runs on anxiety, like something has to happen, there has to be a hook. Besides, only certain genres like thrillers, murder mysteries, crime thrillers or horrors are being commissioned. We are far behind in other genre shows, like family dramas or the shows HBO and Hulu make. But I am working on film scripts, including developing a musical, a Western and a couple of other different ideas.