Actor Meera Chopra spoke about the difficulties that people in her position face in the film industry. Despite being Priyanka Chopra’s cousin, Meera described herself as an ‘outsider’ in a recent interview, and said that if she had any support from within the industry, her career would be in a different place. She also spoke about the commodification of Indian film festivals, and said that she would struggle to get designers to give her free clothes to wear on red carpets.

In an interview with the Hitflik YouTube channel, she said, “We have a big corruption problem in the country. And this hurts genuine talent. We have IFFI, we have MAMI, but even at IFFI, so many films are getting in by ‘jugaad’. We need to eliminate this, and give importance to genuine talent. If you’re pushing your B class projects into festivals by unfair means, it brings into question that festival’s authenticity…”

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Meera said that even the National Film Awards are ‘losing their mojo’. “We used to look up to National Awards even six-seven years back, but now you see mediocre films being awarded. I think people need to take it more seriously,” she said. But while remarking about film festivals being used as venues for self-promotion, she spoke about her experience at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, which she attended despite not having any film in the official selection.

She said, “I was more concerned about which designer’s clothes I’ll be wearing, where my jewellery and clothes were coming in from… In India, they’ve made such a huge deal of who’s wearing what at these international events. I was not getting the great designers I wanted, because all the great designers were sourcing clothes for A-listers. They would unabashedly tell my stylist that they would only give their clothes to A-listers.”

Meera blamed the media for giving more importance to clothes than films. “When I went, people were only talking about the actors and what they were wearing, they weren’t talking about the films that were nominated. How shallow and foolish is that? I have a genuine problem with that.” She said that these thoughts messed with her mind, and she couldn’t focus on giving insightful interviews.

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