Akshay Singh On His Directorial Debut ‘Pinky Beauty Parlour’: After Film Festivals, Hope To Win Hearts Of ‘Aam Janta’

Akshay Singh’s directorial debut ‘Pinky Beauty Parlour’ promises to offer a good mix of drama and satirical comedy. An entertaining and poignant tale of the repercussions that the obsession for fairer skin has on the human mind, the film is set in a unique colourful world of a beauty parlour in the bylanes of Varanasi, and is told through a retinue of interesting and peculiar characters. 

The film, which has travelled to several film festivals, will be released on April 14, 2023. It stars Akshay Singh himself, Sulagna Panigrahi, Khushboo Gupta, Vishwanath Chatterjee, Jogi Malang and Abhay Joshi. 

Ahead of the film’s release, Akshay Singh, who has directed the film and stars in it too, talked to Gurpreet Kaur of Outlook India about the film’s shoot, and how he got the cast on board. 

Your film ‘Pinky Beauty Parlour’ has been screened at 30 international Film Festivals. How has been the response so far?

Well, the response has been amazing, in some way even more than our expectations. I have such beautiful memories from every film festival we’ve attended, which were like rewards for my work. And there were awards too. We were honoured to be the Closing Film of Honolulu Museum of Art Film Festival, Hawaii, USA; Closing Film of ‘Ottawa Indian Film Festival’, Canada; Opening Film of ‘SARRC International Film Festival’, among others. And when at the MAMI Film festival during the Q&A session I was asked about the theatrical release of the Film, I still remember myself saying I would do my best. And here we are today, coming to the cinemas on the 14th of April 2023. I hope to win the hearts of aam janta just like we have won at all the film festivals. 

The film and its trailer shows the biased beauty standards of India. How did you manage to deal with the topic sensitively?

Well, the bias between skin colour is something that I have been witnessing since my childhood around me. And this exists not just in India, but people are obsessed with other skin colours all over the world. It’s a sensitive topic that I felt had to reach a wider audience, and so a mix of drama and satirical comedy is the best way I thought I could put this out through my film ‘Pinky Beauty Parlour’. 

Tell us more about the film’s shooting..

This was more about passion towards filmmaking than just shooting a film. A good portion of the film was shot using the Guerrilla shooting technique. It was teamwork that has brought us here today to release it theatrically. My actors to all the other unit members were really supportive throughout the shoot. We’ve shot in Varanasi for the feel and ambience that the film required. From the very talked about Dussehra festival of Varanasi to the famed Daswasmedha Ghat evening Aarti pooja, all of it was captured naturally on the film. 

How did you get the cast on board?

Well we knew what we were looking for. We went through the process of the whole casting by ourselves, calling up people we knew or have worked with in the past. Sulagna Panigrahi, who plays Pinky, had immediately said yes to doing the film after hearing my narration once. For the character of Bulbul, Khushboo Gupta was always the choice, having known her from a project we had worked on earlier. Well for Dulaal, my whole team thought that no one else could do it better than me. They realised this during the narrations I gave them. 

The film marks your directorial debut, how did you come up with the project?

When I finally decided to direct my feature film, this thought came up prominently in front of me. But I never thought that it would receive such amazing responses at the film festivals we were a part of. ‘Pinky Beauty Parlour’ was a case study at Bodhisattva Film Festival, Patna, enlightening how a film with no big stars and with limited resources can also be an important part of Indian Cinema. The screening of the film was a houseful, and we were speechless and filled with gratitude.