Producer’s Note

Having grown up in Australia in a small beach town in the 1970s, I lived a very dichotomous existence with my ‘Australian’ persona at school and my ‘Indian’ persona at home. This is a very familiar story to children of immigrant families growing up in Western countries all around the world. I was very fortunate to have my grandparents spend a lot of time visiting us from India, and ultimately living with us during my childhood, and so I learnt the basics of the Marathi language, my mother tongue. Watching old VHS tapes of Indian film and dance was always a source of fascination, and when the opportunity arose to learn more when I came to the city of Sydney, I enthusiastically did. This film has special significance for me as we filmed it in India in a village south of Mumbai where my grandfather’s family came from, so it feels like a personal tribute to my ancestral roots.  ‘Maasa’ means ‘Fish’ in Marathi. 

When Phulawa approached me to support her directorial debut, and after reading the script for Maasa, I had no hesitation to embark upon producing this beautiful project. For so many reasons including the need to support more female film-makers and my belief in Phulawa’s talent, the lyrical soulful nature of the film where the unspoken words say everything, the character portrayal of a family shrouded in grief and in particular the relationship between a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law struggling in this situation. And the question of grief itself, and at what point can we move past it? Ultimately, it is also an uplifting celebration of the Indian culture which centres around food and spice, family, and deep emotion. 

Pursuing her advocacy and support of upcoming film-makers, Pradnya was an executive producer on a couple of feature films that premiered at Sundance festival – ‘Farewell Amor’ (2020), and ‘The Sound of Silence’ (2019), both of which went on to theatrical release by IFC Films, and global distribution with MUBI and Sony International respectively. Her first foray into production was a Bollywood film ‘Shoor Amhi Sardaar’ (2017), in which she also featured as a dancer, which went on to a theatrical release in India. She has performed as a dancer in the award-winning Australian short film ‘Spice Sisters’ (2016). Pradnya is keen to discover inspiring stories to bring to life on the screen, and to keep pursuing her love of the cinematic arts.

Pradnya Dugal is an Australian producer, founding Jhumka Films production company in 2016. Born in Australia, of Indian heritage, she is a doctor by profession, practicing as a radiologist in Sydney.  She is an ardent advocate of cinema and the theatrical arts, and is passionate about creating films to tell authentic stories and explore cross-cultural themes that are representational of our modern diverse society.  She has 30+ years of training and experience in classical Indian dance, and she also founded a Bollywood dance company called Monsuun Dance in 2015. These experiences have not only enhanced her respect for her own Indian cultural roots, but also heightened her appreciation of cultural diversity globally.