Khauf

As a filmmaker Surya Balakrishnan gravitates towards real-life observations woven into powerful yet simple stories, mirroring the Iranian cinema she holds dear. In Surya’s work what flows are the stories that resonate with reality and impact. Her foray into filmmaking began with a project for an NGO during her final year of art school. Despite the film’s amateur quality, it was a pivotal moment that revealed to her the medium’s potential for impactful storytelling.

This realization set her on a path to combine her passions for film and social causes. Interestingly, Surya’s childhood was not steeped in cinema; films weren’t seen as a solid career choice, and her exposure was limited to fetching Malayalam films for her grandfather and enjoying her mother’s renditions of musicals like Mary Poppins. Yet, it was the Iranian film, Children of Heaven that sparked her love for cinema, leading her to explore more films from the region, admired for their simplicity and authenticity.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Surya’s early aspirations were rooted in the arts, leading her to pursue fine arts in Bangalore. It was there that she learned the importance of detail, a skill that would later become a cornerstone of her filmmaking process. ‘One of our main jobs is to just be and observe and look at the details,’ she reflects, recognizing the value of those meticulous college exercises in her current narrative craft.

Surya honed her craft at the New York Film Academy, where the intensive curriculum of creating weekly films provided a practical foundation for her skills. Post that, she entered the ad film industry as an assistant director. Her documentary Right Forward which chronicles the journey of a girls’ football team from Dharavi to San Francisco, marked her directorial debut and reflects her commitment to telling stories of empowerment and transformation.

Her debut experiment with fiction is slated to come out in two days. A Matchbox Shots production and an Amazon Prime original, Khauf is a horror story with characters dealing with larger issues around women. More from Surya below. 

Khauf
The show is about a young woman who moves into a hostel room in Delhi, unaware of its dark history of violence and hidden secrets. Grappling with the shadows of her troubled past, she finds herself entangled in a struggle against unexplained forces that manifest both within the confines of the room and outside.

The Making
The good part about advertising is that each film is so different from the other. Each ad teaches you something new. That’s something I absolutely love about our work and in its own way preps you to take on new challenges.

For the show, by the time I was on board a lot of the ground work and prep was already done which in some ways was good because it allowed me to learn while being in the thick of things and yet I could see it from the outside. A long format shoot day is shooting five times of what we would otherwise on an ad and there’s so much happening that sometimes we tend to look at a scene as an independent piece of work but on Khauf, Smita Singh, the writer-showrunner kept it all together at all times and never lost sight of the big picture. It was a pleasure to work with Pankaj Kumar, the lead director and cinematographer of the series, and his experience from years of shooting some of the most incredible films makes our show so distinct looking.

Next Steps
I’m just completing my feature documentary, Amarkatha, set in Kashmir during the Amarnath yatra. The film is about an ecocide caused by the pilgrimage. It’s our company, Footloose Films’ first documentary. I am also working on the development of a show based on a book we have the rights for. I’m mighty excited about both.

Words Hansika Lohani
Date 17.04.2025?