India, Oct. 24 -- The debate around the rising cost of entourage has taken over the Hindi film industry, and director Kiran Rao admits the high cost of teams is one of the reasons that pushes her tow work with newcomers. She launched three new actors-Nitanshi Goel, Pratibha Ranta and Sparsh Shrivastava-with Laapataa Ladies last year, and she asserts that they came without any such baggage.

"Organically, they just fit the scenario of an independent film and I make films that way. Even if the budgets have grown from Dhobi Ghat to Laapataa Ladies, in spirit, my filmmaking is very independent, the idea being that everybody on set is treated kind of equally. We believe in having fair working hours, but making things as tightly as possible, wi...