Introduction
Scholar, philosopher, and now Oscar-nominated filmmaker Adam J. Graves is living the big time with his Oscar-nominated short film Anuja. I recently spoke with him about his film beaming with hope, his collaboration with his wife, and the rollercoaster emotions of Oscar nomination morning.
Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Interview
Ben Miller:
The film itself really digs into some really interesting and deep ideas. It’s all done with this underlying layer of hope that you don’t usually see in stories like this. Did you want to differentiate this story from a traditional poverty story we see depicting Indian women?
Adam J. Graves:
A hundred percent. I think the truth is as we dug deeper into the research and met with the families and kids who come from this background, it just became obvious to us that we had to pay tribute to their spirit and their vivre of life. There was something about the way that they exuded all this joy despite the harsh circumstances in which they found themselves or previously found themselves that it seemed right. We couldn’t imagine creating a film that was anything other than hopeful.
There are 160 million children engaged in child labor worldwide. It’s not an Indian problem; it’s a global problem. Many dark stories could be told. We felt compelled to tell one that paid tribute to the spirit of these children and was also a story that they would want to watch.
I initially envisioned…I’d started working, thinking about brainstorming and sketching ideas for a coming-of-age story before we set on telling a story about kids who are engaged in labor. The truth of the matter is the circumstances surrounding their lives, the fact that they are child laborers is accidental to the core of this film, which is the love between two sisters and the kind of magic and mischievousness of childhood.
Adam J. Graves (cont):
We read this statistic that one in ten kids globally is engaged in child labor, and we thought, well, one in ten coming-of-age films does not feature children in labor. We mostly see children on school breaks, summer breaks, or in school, so child labor is not a defining characteristic of these characters.
They are not defined by their position as victims within a global economy. They are defined by their personalities, their hopes, dreams, aspirations, and what they find interesting. So, yeah, I wanted to make sure that we foregrounded agency rather than passive victims. All of that went into our thinking about the film, but yeah, there are darker stories that could be told.
I don’t share people’s belief that we shouldn’t tell dark stories too. I mean, I think we have a moral obligation to look reality in the eyes and say, yes, this is the world that we live in. And we have to address certain injustices that are just a fact of our global economy that we are in some sense, at least like members of a different socioeconomic class, the beneficiaries of. But at the same time, this film is meant to be a work of art, and to some extent also even entertainment. If you can make a work of art, that’s meaningful, that also draws attention to child labor issues, then that’s all the better.
Capturing their spirit, the spirit of these kids, making sure that we didn’t paint one-dimensional characters who were merely defined by their victimhood, making sure that their agency was foregrounded in the storytelling, all of that contributed to what you see in Anuja.
Ben Miller:
You’re a scholar and a philosopher, as well as a filmmaker. In your filmmaking process, do you find yourself exploring these philosophical questions on purpose? Or is it just kind of something that you did naturally and didn’t think about?
Adam J. Graves:
A little of both. There’s no question. This is something I don’t talk a lot about. I’m not asked a lot about it, so I appreciate the question. One, the film foregrounds a decision that far too many kids globally have to face. And it was important. I felt from the beginning that I didn’t want to have a Hollywood ending where everything is kind of oversimplified. Everything is resolved as if there’s some silver bullet solution to the problem of child labor.
I thought the best we could do as artists and filmmakers is create a work that brings the audience to that moment of an existential decision that oftentimes girls face, which is a decision between contributing to the material well-being of their family. But because they’re these are kids who live in abject poverty, their hope for a future is based on education.
And this is not like some choice that should be taken lightly, or we can condescendingly tell these girls, “Oh, you know, of course, go to school.” So I wanted to make sure that the film brought the audience to this moment of indecision. But in thinking about decision-making, I did heavily rely upon my philosophical work and a lot of the work of other philosophers, like the famous or infamous, depending on who you talk to, French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who’s the father of existentialism, whose work on a decision was formative for me.
He says that a decision is exactly the opposite of a calculation. When you calculate, you weigh the pros and cons. And you decide based on which one has more pros and fewer cons and that kind of calculation deprives the agent of a true decision because even a computer could calculate the result, right?
Adam J. Graves (cont.):
You could produce the result through a mere calculation. In a true existential decision, a true decision has as its condition of possibility, the impossibility of making such a decision. In other words, it’s only when the pros and cons are not completely equivalent. There’s almost an equation that a genuine decision could be made.
And that sounds maybe heady and abstract and kind of silly, but in some sense, it helped me see more clearly how we had to raise the stakes to make sure that this moment of indecision was a true existential choice…not just a matter of calculating the pros and cons, right? The kind of the cost/benefit. It’s ironic because the young girl in the film, the titular character Anuja, is herself a genius of calculation, right?
She is a mathematical wizard and she has this incredible natural gift. But then when she has to face a human choice, she’s paralyzed. So there is this play running through the film. I’ve never spoken about it in any other interview, and I’ve done now dozens and dozens. There’s this kind of dialectic or tension between the calculative capacity of the central characteristics and the incalculable conditions of impossibility surrounding the decision itself. It’s an example of where the philosophical piece kind of comes into the narrative.
Ben Miller:
You were partnering with your wife (Suchitra Mattai) on this film, with her as the producer, and you as the director. I’m curious, about your working relationship…does it mirror your personal relationship and your dynamic on a set, or do you separate your normal interactions from how your professional interactions have coincided?
Adam J. Graves:
Totally. It’s interwoven into our lives. There’s no distinction between our professional and personal relationship. We are one of those couples that pretty much, to the extent possible, we do spend our waking lives together. She’s an artist, she works in your studio. I’m a scholar. Aside from teaching, I tend to work from a desk. And so we were often together and it’s a seamless relationship.
We live and breathe our work, for better or worse. It’s not like we go from play to career. Everything is kind of amorphous and together. We were just talking on the phone that you have to escape it. You have to try to escape it. Especially right now with the whole Oscar run, it’s becoming a little bit overwhelming and kind of all-encompassing. And it’s not allowing for any space to think about anything else. And that can get kind of problematic. That can become a kind of a burden.
Ben Miller:
Good problem to have. Right?
Adam J. Graves:
Yeah, we should try to carve out 45 minutes and go grab a drink at the local bar. Or a place we go for a drink, even if we can’t go to a film. We were huge movie-goers and we saw a lot, and we paid for the tickets. We loved movie theater popcorn. So we’d go to the theater all the time and that’s something we haven’t done in a little bit because we haven’t had a chance, but aside from those little moments of escape, we’re always in it. We’re always in it…for better or worse.
Ben Miller:
You and your wife…for the rest of your life can say I am a philosophical scholar and also it says Academy Award nominee on your business card. Has that sunk in yet? What was Friday for your for you guys? Like were you sitting there doing that? You have the shortlist and you’re like, okay…your mind goes there. And then you hear your name called and it was second. So, right off the bat, you’re like, “Oh wow, this is happening!”
Adam J. Graves:
Well, you know, what’s funny…I’ll tell this story. The Academy had been listing our film of the 15 films, always first, because of alphabetical order in the categorization. So when they got to the Live Action Shorts on that announcement morning, and so Chitra and I were downstairs in our living room huddled over a computer. We had two computers in front of us. My laptop had the YouTube page where they were live-streaming the awards. And then we had another computer set up with Zoom, where our producers like Mindy Kaling and our cast and crew in India and friends here in LA…we’re all on this collective Zoom.
They get to live-action shorts and the first film they call is ‘A Lien.’ And I love those two filmmakers. I’ve gotten to know David and Sam over the last couple of weeks. They’re just really lovely people. So shout out to them. But I heard A Lien, and my heart sank because I was used to hearing Anuja first. And I thought, “Oh no, we didn’t make it” and my emotional breakdown was occurring. I heard Anuja second so it was almost like when you’re coming in for a landing on a plane and they cut the engine. it was like the engine cut, and then you feel the wheels touch the ground.
It was a connection, you know? So it was a crazy little psychological moment for me. And I think there was a lot of optimism on that call, but I was like, I had no idea, no expectations going into it. So, yeah, it was pretty cool. It was a fun, fun moment and I didn’t sleep that night. I’ll be honest. And I haven’t slept that much since.
Ben Miller:
Not necessarily saying, “I’m going to get in the mind of Academy voters,” but all these shorts were incredible. What do you think about Anuja that was the thing that [said] this is the thing that is separating it from everything else?
Adam J. Graves:
I can’t answer that question because as you said, there are so many wonderful films. I’m honored to be included in the category and among so many worthy filmmakers. The one thing I’ll say about Anuja, there are two things. First, I don’t know the other films well enough to be honest, but I do respect them. Like making a film, even as like a scrappy indie filmmaker who’s not made much before and just put this pretty much on the credit card, getting a little bit from my brother, you know, stuff like that.
Crowdfunding for us filmmakers like that. It’s still a tremendous privilege to be able to make a film. A lot goes into getting to be making a film and it’s not something that just anybody is lucky enough to do. It’s real luck, you know? And my feeling is that if you have that privilege to make a film, then it’s kind of a nice thing to be able to use the medium as a vehicle for some kind of change-use the vehicle to shine light on an issue that is of some importance. And I don’t mean to suggest that every film has to have some social impact element. That’s simply not the case. Art is art and it is valuable. In and of itself, and that’s what makes it art.
But if you have the opportunity, and you feel like you’ve got the right story that can produce that kind of emotional response in an audience that you’re looking for, and also somehow yield some degree of transformative change in the world, then why not? It’s like a win-win. So I feel honored and lucky to be in the position to be able to do both: create a piece of work that connects with people emotionally, but also has the potential to raise awareness about an issue and perhaps also raise support for organizations that are trying to bring an end to child labor.
Adam J. Graves:
Finally, to be a source of transformative change in the life of our protagonist, who plays Anuja, is a child who’s living at one of the centers in Delhi run by the Salaam Bal Trust, which provides a home for kids who grew up in vulnerable circumstances, either living on the streets or engaged in work. This film is, is going to be, and it has already become a real pivotal moment in her life. And I know that we are going to be able to provide her with resources that will allow her to be able to pursue whatever she wants when she becomes an adult without having to worry about whether she’ll have the funds to pay for college and things like that.
So that’s tremendously important to us. And it’s kind of heartwarming. The thing I’ll say formally about the film is that it is unusual to this extent. I think it has a care. It has a quality. When people tell you when you read about how to make a short film, all the best advice tells you to keep it contained, right? You know, contain. Short films, there’s no chance of…they’re not commercial products, right? They’re not, nobody turns a profit on a short film. So you would be wise to shoot in one location that you have locked in, trying to come up with a story that’s narratively contained.
You might be able to cast it with one or two characters. However, we kind of blew the lid off all that advice when we made the film, I just threw all that, which is sage advice, I will follow it going forward, but on this project, I was like, throw it to the wind, go all in and just shoot the film, the story that we were able to dream up.
Adam J. Graves:
Because of that, I tend to think it has the flavor of a feature film in 22 minutes. So, you’re brought into a whole new world. Several worlds. And environments that might be unique or unfamiliar. At least to American audiences or Academy audiences. Academy members tend to live in different circumstances than these girls.
We were able to film within these various worlds and the arc of the story is multi-dimensional, I think. And the core of the film is this loving relationship between sisters. So, I hope it’s this kind of subtle human story of these characters and their profound relationship. And I think that’s perhaps a little atypical of the genre. If short film is a genre or the medium of short film.
So it’s unusual maybe in that regard, I’m not saying it’s exceptional as a result or that it’s better than other films that have a different character quality or are more typical of the genre. But that’s just one of the things that I’ve come to appreciate as I see the film in the context of festivals and watching all these other beautiful, wonderful films that people are pouring their hearts and souls into. So it’s been fun.
Ben Miller:
Well, in the words of Orson Welles, when he made Citizen Kane, they’re like, well, how’d you figure out to do that? And it’s like pure ignorance. I didn’t know I couldn’t do that. So, whatever makes it work.
Adam J. Graves:
Yeah, I think he said, like, there’s no talent to top it, right? A lot of talent can live up to just pure ignorance. And knowing what you can’t do is part of it.
Ben Miller:
You got ‘it’ about a month ago. I’m sure all the top fashion houses have been in contact. Ready to get you all ready.
Adam J. Graves:
Have they seen the photos? They’re like, no, thanks. We’re going to move on to other subjects. I didn’t even have a chance to respond. I’m kind of vaguely aware of what’s in my inbox right now. I was contacted maybe by one designer who’s based in Ireland, who knows one of the other brilliant short film-making teams behind Room Taken. A gentleman by the name of Coleman is great and has become a good friend of mine because we followed this journey together and lovely people.
And of course, Colin Farrell is an EP on that film. And so someone had designed some wardrobe, whatever…I’m not a wardrobe guy. I know how my wife got it, my wife got me this and it seems cool and I wear it but other than that like I’m kind of a T-shirt and jeans person. So I don’t know much about that world. I just hope that whatever we do, it’s all ethically sourced stuff.
Ben Miller:
Well, you don’t want to be the guy the next day, you’re like this guy on the worst-dressed list. That’s all you want, is to just get away from that.
Adam J. Graves:
I don’t think even if I am the worst dressed, anybody will notice quite frankly.
Ben Miller:
Well, that being said, I wish the best of luck to you and your wife, and congratulations on your nomination. Best of luck to you in about a month. You’ve got a full next 35 days. It’s not busy, as you said, but congratulations and I’ll be rooting for you on the day. And thank you once again for your film.
Adam J. Graves:
Thank you so much, Ben. Appreciate you having me.
Anuja is now streaming on Netflix
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