In 2017, after Rahul V Chittella’s maiden short film Azaad was screened by the UNESCO, a deeply impressed Manoj Bajpayee promised to work in his debut feature film. Almost six years later, it has resulted in Gulmohar. It’s easy to gauge that the drama — starring Sharmila Tagore, Bajpayee, Simran and Suraj Sharma — isn’t your run-of-the-mill Bollywood fare. That has much to do with Chittella’s cinematic sensibilities that have been shaped by working on Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012) and A Suitable Boy (2020). 

Chittella has his wife to thank for the movie’s inception. The director recounts, “My wife thought that I only write about dark subjects and death. So, she challenged me to write a family film.”