With “Early Days”, director Priyankar Patra crafts an intimate relationship drama shaped by the pressures of influencer culture and the struggle to build a life in Mumbai. Sitting alongside actors Sarthak Sharma and Manasi Kaushik, editor Anupam Sinha Roy, and producers Isabella Sreyashii Sen and Olivier Dock, Patra describes a project that began with a single idea about digital identity and expanded into a cross-border collaboration between India and Singapore.
Patra reveals that the decision to shoot much of the movie on a handheld camcorder came from a desire to contrast the polished world of vertical videos with the rough, unfiltered texture of real life. The handycam, he explains, brought a voyeuristic closeness while also capturing the imperfect edges of early adulthood. For him, the grainy aesthetic reflects the couple’s unpolished reality, while the ultra-clean phone footage represents the curated worlds they present to strangers online.
Kaushik describes her character Preeti as passionate, ambitious, and quietly overwhelmed by the comparison-driven economy of influencer culture. She emphasizes that the character is not driven by jealousy but by a deep desire to build a life larger than the one she comes from. Sharma, who plays Samrat, frames his character’s conflict in terms of dislocation — a man from a smaller city struggling to navigate a metropolis where his partner’s new digital fame pushes him further toward invisibility. For both actors, the film is less about influencers and more about communication, or the lack of it, in modern relationships.
Despite the emotional demands of the narrative, the performers note that the production environment made the work feel organic. The long workshops created clarity and trust, allowing them to approach both the early romantic warmth and the later volatility with confidence. The intimacy scenes were challenging at first, but the actors credit the director and crew for cultivating a space where vulnerability felt safe. In contrast, the escalating tension scenes came naturally — as Kaushik put it, “fighting is something humans do every day.”
Producer Isabella Sreyashii Sen explains that the project appealed to the team because its themes transcend geography. Although set in Mumbai, the story of a couple navigating the seductive pull of online validation resonates globally. For her, the film had to go beyond a simple festival run and become a conversation piece about relationships, digital culture, and the search for identity. Co-producer Olivier Dock echoes the sentiment, stressing that their guiding principle is always the human story, regardless of genre.
Patra describes the casting as almost predestined — he had written the characters with Kaushik and Sharma in mind from the beginning. Once they agreed, he and co-writer/editor Anupam Sinha Roy reworked the script to incorporate details from the actors’ personalities, grounding the emotional throughline. As a longtime friend and flatmate of the director, Sinha Roy became involved from the earliest drafts, shaping the story beats and later embracing the challenge of blending the mixed media footage into a cohesive emotional rhythm.
The most difficult sequence to capture was the climax — a confrontation meant to take place in a different location, but filmed on a highway after a last-minute loss of permission. Racing against the setting sun, the team improvised the entire setup. That pressure, combined with the rawness of the performances, ended up producing the film’s most powerful moment. For the team, it became not only the hardest scene but also their favorite.
As the film begins its festival journey, the producers confirm plans for a global rollout, including screenings in India, international cities, colleges, and social-impact programs. “Early Days” is positioned not merely as a debut feature but as a dialogue starter — a story that speaks to the emotional and psychological architecture of relationships shaped by the digital age.