047: Deep Dive with Leela Varghese: The Afterlife of Your Film is the Most Important Part

In this episode, Kirsty chats to Leela Varghese, a writer and director, most recently of Lesbian Space Princess, which she co-wrote and co-directed with Emma Hough Hobbs, winning Best Indie Film at the AACTA Awards and the Teddy Award for Best Feature at Berlinale. Leela also wrote and directed the short film I’m the Most Racist Person I Know, which won the Special Jury Award at SXSW and the AACTA Award for Best Short Film.Kirsty and Leela discuss her career trajectory, including the strategies she applied on both recent films to try to build her profile as a director.Listen to hear Leela discuss:strategically aligning project ideas with grant criteria or historical festival programming to give them the best chance of successthe importance of building relationships with festival programmershow bold titles have played a role in her films’ success, and the way they’ve been seen by audiencesworking with distributors and sales agents as part of your festival strategythe relevance of film festivals in an age of social media and streaminghow to pivot and give your project the best chance of market success, while holding onto your creative vision why you should be thinking about distribution as you develop your projectsFollow Leela and her work:Leela on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leelavargoose Lesbian Space Princess: https://lesbianspaceprincessmovie.comLesbian Space Princess on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lesbianspaceprincessfilmLesbian Space Princess: Official Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nra14aUNYS8This Deep Dive interview is hosted and edited by Kirsty Stark.If you’re enjoying the podcast, please leave a rating on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and we’d love you to forward this episode to a friend!Follow us on: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠Don’t forget to subscribe & get weekly episodes in your inbox.