Vivek Chaudhary On His Award-Winning Documentary That Almost Never Got Made
In many ways, Vivek Chaudhary's I, Poppy, refuses to give easy conclusions. It does not offer hope as a neat resolution. Instead, it shows a world where people are asked to stay in line, to not question, to simply survive.
By Minal Rudra
Published : March 31, 2026 at 5:28 PM IST
A two-member crew stood in the dark fields of Rajasthan. Voices rose around them as angry farmers closed in and hands reached for the camera. Friction kept increasing as someone shouted while others pushed. In that moment, MBA graduate turned filmmaker Vivek Chaudhary understood that this story, I, Poppy, could end before it even began. The intention was to be the voice of poppy farmers who are battling the rigged system. But the irony was that the farmers were against the film. They preferred silence over questioning the systemic corruption that is threatening their livelihood.
Then a strange compromise happened, and Chaudhary, along with his cinematographer Mustaqeem Khan, was let go with their camera intact but not without their memory card being destroyed.
That night could have swallowed everything. Curiosity, hard work, years of research, and months of travel. But danger seemingly had its own way of opening doors.
Before Chaudhary could understand anything, his phone rang.
"Do not go back to the hotel. People know where you are put. You can stay at my home and leave in the morning."
On the other side of the call was Mangilal Meghwal, a farmer by lineage, teacher by profession, and activist by choice.
By 9 pm, Chaudhary and Mustaqeem entered a modest house of Meghwals, where Mangilal lived with his mother, wife, two sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren.
After what appeared to be a dead end, the filming began again that very night. A few hours in the Meghwals' home and Choudhary knew that this was the family through whom he was going to tell the story, and that shifted the entire direction of the film. Vardibai and Mangilal entered the frame as the main characters. The conversations between this mother-and-son duo opened a window to the hardships that the poppy farmers face. Something that the years of research and data could not offer.
Wrinkles on Vardibai's face are a map of resilience and struggle. She fears the consequences of her son's activism. "The dynamic between the mother and son was stunning. Loving, but strained by conflict," shared Chaudhary.
Interestingly, Mangilal was nowhere in how the story was planned initially. In fact, Chaudhary was averse to Mangilal when he first saw him at a protest site. "He looked more like an activist than a farmer, and he talks a lot," recalled the filmmaker with a smile.
The filmmaker initially wanted to explore the "entire ecosystem around opium, from farmers to officials to the mafia." But the scale and risk forced him to rethink. Finding its central characters was not easy. Across Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, farmers were hesitant and fearful. "There is so much pressure. They fear officials, police, even the mafia." Many opened up at first but would then withdraw.
But Meghwals, he said, were unfazed by the camera. They were natural.
The journey took nearly eight years to complete. Research began in 2017. Shooting went on from 2018 to 2022. Editing continued alongside, stretching into 2024. "It was a long journey," he said, and as he mentioned in one of his Instagram posts, he and I, Poppy, broke up often enough. "But we are in it for the long haul, and why not?" reads a caption alongside a picture of Vardibai enjoying a bike ride.
For Chaudhary, the story begins at home. "I am born and brought up in Ahmedabad with ancestral roots in Barmer. Opium is part of our cultural fabric,” he says. Childhood visits to his village meant seeing opium as part of family traditions and prestige. Years later, curiosity brought him back. What first struck him was beauty. “When I first saw poppy flowers bloom in an opium field... it was a very magnetic image." It did not take him long to understand that what this beautiful crop hides are "layers of oppression and corruption almost enslaving farmers."
At its core, I, Poppy, is a story about choices. Mangilal chooses to speak up. But that choice comes at a cost. His family suffers. His mother worries. The fragile financial health of the family goes from bad to worse.
Discrimination, fighting against systems, and corruption are recurring themes in Chaudhary's works so far. Goonga Pehelwan, a National Award-winning documentary that he co-directed, follows the story of Virender Singh, who faced rejection but went on to become the first deaf athlete to be awarded the Padma Shri. His next directorial venture, All Access: The Contenders, a mini sports series on Prime Video, investigates what six competitors endure as they enter into the cricket sport industry on a global level.
With I, Poppy, the self-taught filmmaker talks about corruption as a feature and not a failure of the system. The system around opium cultivation, he explained, has roots in colonial policies. "We had white oppressors. Now we have brown oppressors," he said, recounting what farmers told him.
He has an answer to why calling out the system that enables oppression finds its way to the center of the stories he chooses to tell.
"You grow up and realise good people don’t always win," said the 30-year-old filmmaker, who thinks corruption goes beyond money. "Why should growing up mean corruption of ideals?" he asked. "It's just not something that I'm able to reconcile with." Hence, when the international funders suggested embedding the caste identity of the family in the first five minutes of the film, it led to disagreement.
"It just doesn't feel right because nobody wakes up and says, 'Oh, I am so and so.' You have been living with your identity for a very long time. You won't say it unless it comes up. So in an 82-minute film at 62 minutes, the mother tells her son to not forget who they are, and that's where she uses the word 'Dalit.' Before that, there is no mention of the word," he shared.
"Mangilal is always wearing the Ambedkar blue. Right from his phone, to his classroom, to his house, there have been Ambedkar pictures all around. So somebody who's looking at the details will see it anyway."
There is also a conscious effort to avoid turning suffering into spectacle. Vivek is aware of the criticism that often comes when filmmakers document marginalised lives. "We wanted to stay away from anything that resembles poverty porn." By living with the family over years, being with them through moments of joy and sorrow allowed showcasing fully drawn-out characters with complexity so that they do not come across as just caricatures of underprivileged lives.
The film’s ending underlines the harsh reality of life. There is no clear victory. "Mangilal continues his activism, but there is visible fatigue. Years of संघर्ष have taken a toll. Yet stopping is not an option. It is so innate to him," Vivek said. "I don’t think he can stop."
I, Poppy, won the Best Documentary Award at the recently held Critics’ Choice Awards India 2026. Previously, it bagged the Best International Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs 2025 and the Busan Cinephile Award at the Busan International Film Festival 2025. Besides directing, Vivek also co-produced the film with Xavier Rocher. The film is edited by Tanushree Das and Camille Mouton.
The team is now looking forward to hosting the Meghwal family in Mumbai on April 16 for a screening. "It'll be lovely to watch the film with them and see them interact with the audience so that I don't have to be a conduit for anything."
