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Rita Heer
Abja and Her Pickled Eggs
XXI | ÉCU FILM FESTIVAL | 2026
24-26 April
Les 7 parnassiens Paris
DEBUT SHORT
ABJA AND HER PICKLED EGGS
European Dramatic Short
22' | Germany, India, United Arab Emirates
Writer/Directed: Rita Heer
Images © Gurjyot Singh Sanghera
MAR, 25, 2026
With her 40th birthday looming, a single, working-class woman must decide whether to freeze her eggs.
Hey Rita, thank you for taking the time to talk with us ahead of this years festival. What does it mean to bring Abja and Her Pickled Eggs to ÉCU in Paris?
I’m honestly quite excited to bring Abja and Her Pickled Eggs to ECU as it’s a festival which prides itself on championing independent film from around the world. It also happens to be the European premiere of the film and I can’t think of a better festival as an indie filmmaker.
You’ve had an amazing festival run already with Abja and Her Pickled Eggs, what do you think it is about your film that’s connected so much with audiences?
I think despite the story being so local and specific to India, it also deals with a subject matter that hasn’t been explored much on film: egg freezing. Through this lens, the film explores what it means to have one’s worth attached to fertility and I think that’s very universal.
What made now the right time for you to make your debut narrative short?
I think I had reached a point where I couldn’t deny wanting to talk about people on the margins surviving the onslaught of societal and economic pressures, a predicament for women generally across the globe. So after co-writing a feature film, I felt confident enough to write Abja’s story as a short film. I shared the script with a few of my peers who suggested that I should definitely turn it into a short film. I took that as an invitation to just take the leap into directing!
With this being your debut short as writer, director, and art director has it been difficult to let go of Abja and hand it over to audiences?
My cast, crew and I had been so invested in creating the world of the film with all it’s details that I completely forgot that at some point audiences will watch it and interact with the film in their own way! But I think that immersive experience was required to create the film in an authentic manner and we are now ready to share it with others like us.
Any nerves setting in ahead of your screening?
I have less nerves and more excitement as to how Parisian/French audience will react to the film. I love seeing how audiences from different places pick up different themes from the film and ask really unique questions, some that even I can’t answer.
What's been the most exciting part of sharing your film with festival audiences?
The most exciting part has been audiences nuanced reactions. One thing that has remained constant is how women just instinctively understand the film and the subject matter, while men have a lot more questions. Looking forward to see if its different in France!
What was the experience like working with Sugandha Garg, did you have an idea who you wanted to play Abja as you where writing your script?
When I was initially writing the script I didn’t have anyone in mind, I was just in the flow of writing the story. But once I had finished, I knew the only actress who could really bring out the various layers in Abja’s journey was Sugandha. I had first met Sugandha on a TV series that we both had worked on together and I knew she would really be able to bring Abja to life.
Initially, Sugandha and I discussed the nuances and layers in the character of Abja and the themes of the film. For us both, the story reflected not just class and gender in a patriarchal society but also choice and freedom for a working class woman that lives in the city. We wanted to bring out the isolation yet a sense of hope laced with humour in order to bring out the humanity of not only Abja but the rest of the characters too. For this, Vinod Rawat (a fellow director and acting coach) and I held workshops with all of the actors so we could play even more with the dialogue, body language and silence on set.
I had also given Sugandha a lot of reading material on egg freezing and she was also free to ask any questions to build the character. Sugandha and I also worked with a working class, freelance beautician as we wanted to do away with any preconceived stereotypes that we may have subconsciously had. Overall, we wanted to ensure Abja was not a one note character who was helpless. Instead the dual nature that Sugandha embodied gave Abja a sense of agency whilst being guarded yet vulnerable at various points in the story.
If you could describe Abja in a sentence what would you say?
Abja is a strong, complex woman who is slightly guarded yet has so much tenderness internally.
Tell me a little bit about Abja and Her Pickled Eggs, what inspired your screenplay?
The initial idea and concept of the film came from personal experience. I had been researching about freezing my eggs and as I started to visit different hospitals in Mumbai, I spoke to many medical professionals and patients. All these women were from different walks of life but there was so much in common between us all. That experience stayed with me and once I admitted to myself that I wanted to direct, I wrote the script in one afternoon in 2024 whilst travelling.
As I developed the story, I realised that Abja was not only about egg freezing but also about claiming space in a world that often excludes women based on class, age, and societal expectations. I thought what it would feel like if Abja was 40 as opposed to being in her 30s as the fear of being devalued as one ages is universal, but it resonates deeply for women and especially in patriarchal societies where marriage and motherhood are markers of respectability. For me, the personal spark came when these reflections filtered into my dreams. Visuals that captured an inner world — a womb-like cocoon where Abja could exist far away from judgment and the pressures of society. This became the emotional and visual heart of the film.
What has been the biggest challenges you've faced putting your film together?
The biggest challenge was how to create and portray Abja’s inner world and the magical realism sequences without diluting the harshness of Mumbai’s working class environment. But fortunately I collaborated with great people who always worked with me on finding unique solutions.
How essential was the creative collaboration between you and your DOP Dhawalika Singh and your editor Maulik Sharma?
It was really essential as our collaboration set the foundation for everyone else to bring their A-game and elaborate on what we already were planning for the film. Dhawalika and I had a lot of conversations early on about women living in cities — the tension between the desire to be a mother and the social pressure to become one, the way egg freezing is framed as a choice, and how that intersects with women’s roles as carers, wage earners, and everything in between. We also talked a lot about our own experiences, and about how many women felt time slipping or stalling during the pandemic, and how all of that has probably fed into Abja’s life. With the mood board I had created, we made a detailed shot deck which also helped Maulik preplan the edit. Maulik and I also had a technical run prior to the shoot which allowed us to adjust anything that wasn’t working for the film. We wanted the look and feel of the film to be very vivid, have a sense of beauty rather than darkness, to emphasise hope within moments of isolation and loneliness that Abja experiences; the complex nature of being a woman. Maulik grasped this rhythm of the film very well and felt ready fort he editorial challenges once the rushes were in.
What was the hardest scene for you to shoot?
The magical realism sequence of Abja in a womb like environment surrounded with thousands of eggs.
How close did you stick to your screenplay once you started going into production?
Funnily, I just got to reflect upon this question while revisiting my shot deck for Abja a few days ago and the coherence was uncanny. Going into production, we closely stuck to the screenplay. That was a conscious decision as I wanted to create a detailed world in which then the actors could explore and play with their dialogue and performances freely.
Where did your passion for filmmaking come from?
My passion for filmmaking came from the fascination of visually creating worlds and stories from a young age. The fact that you can fully become immersed in some one else’s world in a dark cinema hall for some time hooked me from a young age. My mother introduced me to old black and white Hindi films and on the flip side she also loved Hollywood westerns and Clint Eastwood despite never really being a film buff, she just enjoyed them! But that initial introduction to films sparked my interest and once I watched a lot of world cinema during my film studies, I was certain someday I will be a filmmaker.
What has been the most valuable lesson from making Abja and Her Pickled Eggs?
That its community and teamwork that brings a story, a dream to life and somehow, we get to create a film. Film is very unique in this way that it really requires artistic collaboration on all levels and my cast and crew is my first true audience. That’s the beauty of film!
"Growing up working class in England in an immigrant family, I seem to gravitate towards such stories and how the boundaries between private dreams, desires and public life collapse in unexpected ways."
Will you continue to explore stories and experiences of women who may find themselves disenfranchised based on their age, class, and wider social expectations?
As I prepare for my next short film, which revolves around a working class man struggling with a pornography addiction, I think yes I will continue to explore stories of people who are disenfranchised whether through age, class and societal expectation regardless of gender. Growing up working class in England in an immigrant family, I seem to gravitate towards such stories and how the boundaries between private dreams, desires and public life collapse in unexpected ways.
Who have been your biggest inspirations?
Directors such as Mike Leigh, Lee Chang Dong, Hirokazu Koreeda, Nadine Labaki, Asghar Farhadi, Satyajit Ray and Zhang Yimou are big inspirations as someone who is just beginning their career as a filmmaker.
And finally, what do you hope people will take away from Abja and Her Pickled Eggs?
Now that Abja & Her Pickled Eggs is out in the world, I feel audiences should be free to make of the film what they want. But I do hope on some level, that the silent negotiations many women make, whether with our bodies, our choices, and our worth, are recognised. For me this film was a meditation on agency, aging, and what it means to hold space for oneself in a world that often doesn’t and so yes, may be a sense of hope in a world that can seem grim at times is what I would want people to take away.