‘Life’s come a full circle’

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In India, Cannes Film Festival and Anurag Kashyap have become almost synonymous. Known as the father of new-age cinema in the country, the director-producer has some role to play in all the films — Ugly, Monsoon Shootout, The Lunchbox and Bombay Talkies — that went to the festival from India this year.

The country may be talking about him, but ask him if he is happy with the acceptance at Cannes and he humbly plays it down, “Who says I have been accepted at Cannes? Every film gets a standing ovation at that festival, not just ours. This year we had five films but that doesn’t mean I am accepted at Cannes and it doesn’t even mean that every year they will wait for me. It is much different at Cannes from what people here perceive it to be.”
However, the filmmaker, who was in the capital to announce the release of five short films churned out from his banner — Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt Ltd — for a global video challenge by Google India, “India Is…”, says that The Lunchbox by Ritesh Batra that won accolades at Cannes is a ground-breaking film in India. “Another surprise package is actress Nimrat Kaur, who has earned much appreciation and applause. She’ll be the next big thing,” says Kashyap, who has completed 20 years in Mumbai.
“Life has come a full circle for me,” he says recalling how he started his film career making short films and moved on to feature films like Dev D and Gangs of Wasseypur and now is again back to backing short films by young filmmakers.
Ask him about the future of short films and he confesses that he isn’t sure how things will shape up. “The day Indians start shelling out few pennies to watch videos on YouTube, things will become brighter. The sad part is that we want everything for free,” he remarks.
Kashyap seems disappointed with the way everything functions in India. “We complain so much that we don’t make good movies and don’t develop TV content that resonates with people. But everything has a reason. Look how in other countries they have good stuff on TV. They pay to watch it. On the contrary, we don’t want to pay at all. Ab itne paise me toh itna hi milenga,” he brazenly remarks.
But he accepts that things are slowly changing. The quality of writing for the entertainment industry is gradually becoming better. “The good part is that the audience is changing. They are no more watching a Himmatwala but a Kai Po Che — a fully commercial film made without unnecessary masala elements. Isn’t that a good change?” he probes and gleefully confesses that he is happy to see and be a part of this change. “It’s not really important who is listening to me. Right now, it’s important that I am getting to speak and nobody is suppressing me,” he says.
But isn’t good business also equally important? “If I have clarity of thought, my film will also give me good business,” he says. In fact, business is always there on his mind. “I work backwards. Gangs of Wasseypur could have been much more expensive. But we made it in a considerably smaller budget because we knew we were using someone else’s money and that person should not suffer loss,” he says.
He has mentioned quite often that as a young guy his ideologies changed with the books he read or the people he met, quiz him if it is still the same and with a sheepish grin, he says, “I am very impressionable”.
After being busy with producing films for some time, soon Kashyap would be donning the director’s hat again for his next project, Bombay Velvet that will be shot mostly in Sri Lanka as “it’s difficult to shoot in India”.
The project has been on his mind since a few years. The film is based on historian Gyan Prakash’s book Mumbai Fables. Kashyap says that the trigger to do a film like this came from his interest in books by authors like Thomas Perry, James Ellroy and all those people who have themes rooted in history.
“Meeting Gyan Prakash just catapulted it. While he was writing the book, we were also working on the screenplay alongside,” he signs off, repeating that he is in a happy place... finally!