Fresh from winning the Best Film Award and critical appreciation for his unconventional Bengali film Arekti Premer Galpo (Just Another Love Story) at the recently held I-View Festival in New York, Tollywood director Kaushik Ganguly is on a high. Keeping his fingers crossed for the London Film Festival this month, the director takes a much-needed break in between penning his next “unusual” script, scheduled to hit the floors in February 2011.
Excerpts from an interview:
Q. Arekti Premer Galpo or Just Another Love Story (JLS) is garnering accolades and awards in the international arenas.
A. I am really happy about the fact that the film has been able to create the right kind of noises all over. Early this year on February 19, Arekti Premer Galpo opened to premier at the 60th Berlin International filmfest in its Panorama section. Incredibly, all three shows were fully sold out. On October 24, the film will yet again tour England to be screened at the Watermans Theatre of Brentford in London, wherein a widely reputed filmfest will be hosted. Back on the hometurf, Arekti... will release nationally by this December-end with English subtitles. The esteemed production house is Cinemawallah. It is the same stable which has previously produced arthouse ventures like Anjan Dutt’s Bow Barracks Forever, Rituparno Ghosh’s Titli and Utsav and Arup Dutta’s Morning Walk.
Q. Given the film’s niche subject, weren’t you apprehensive about reeling it in the first place?
A. I’ve neither weighed the audience response nor speculated the box office profits prior to canning their shots. All of them are my pet projects. I make films from my heart. I listen to my own conscience and focus on the subjects that I honestly believe in. Critics may tag me as an offbeat director, but I don’t swim against the tide only to sound or appear different as a high-brow intellect.
Q. The film explicitly addresses the “third” gender or the “other” kind of sexes existent in the surrounding society. Also, it vehemently explores the same-sex relationship. How bold you think is the idea in today’s context?
A. Conceptually, the film is indeed a bold step towards experimental cinema as it pushes the limits and encourages possibilities of evolution in the filmmaking process. Homosexuality is still considered to be a taboo topic when it comes to seeking acceptance in the mainstream society. The subject is still whispered in hushed tones and instantly swept under the wraps. Hence, despite a decent intermittent churn out of gay flicks in contemporary India, the genre gets bracketed within the category of alternate cinema. India is now broadly dissected into a modern and medieval land. But the stories of torture and intolerance are heart-wrenchingly similar everywhere.
Q. Notwithstanding the hiccups usually stalking a same-sex related movie, JALS could reap some rave reviews at the I-View Film Festival.
A. It’s very true that in spite of a large populace shying away from openly talking about homosexuality or skirting the issue, the gathering at the New York auditorium left me stunned with their spontaneous feedback. The response was overwhelmingly emotional in terms of the film’s substantial content. It made sense to their liberal vision and the underlying message could congenially connect with their subtle sensibilities.
As a creative filmmaker, I feel a lot can be conveyed, taught and showcased via the cinematic medium. It helps viewers to contemplate and introspect a thought-provoking issue in greater depths which can further elicit opinions, arguments and healthy debates.
Q. Your Bengali telefilm Ushnatar Jonnyo, which was aired on one of the satellite channels a few years ago, had actually taken the viewers by surprise and the puritans by storm. Is JALS a further extension of that closet subject?
A. Yes. It’s a take-off from there. I did explore the lesbian angle to a love-story between two consenting adult women for a zonally confined small-screen audience earlier. And the film caused quite a stir across the board. Albeit it managed to reach only a limited segment of cable accessible households via the tube and drew parallel critical acclaims but its tremors were felt within a regional periphery long before the Delhi high court decriminalised homosexuality or same-sex behaviour in a historic judgement delivered on July 2, 2009 by repealing the Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in India. So quite logically, I wanted to delve further and deeper on this issue within a “cinemascopic” lens and bring bisexuality as another vertex into the amorous triangular affair, drafted in the script.
Q. Why did you replace the previous title
Chhayachhobi with JALS?
A. The title was a working one in the first place. Secondly, it limited the gamut of issues like gender and alternate sexuality that have been seriously tackled in this film. JALS neither reveals anything out-and-out nor does it equivocally conceals the film’s contentious theme. Although content-wise, it walks a tightrope, yet homosexuality has been treated as yet another love story, typically evinced amidst the straight, heterogeneous matches. Besides, a few years back, I had made a digital telefilm called Chhayachhobi for a private channel. Therefore, I steered clear of sounding repetitive with the same title this time.
Q. How easy or difficult was it to rope in National Award-winning filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh in such a well-defined challenging role? Wasn’t it a casting coup of sorts?
A. Definitely. But Rituda has not only made his acting debut with this movie but has also trebled up as the entire project’s production designer, creative director and consultant. I won’t say that he was on for this stellar role from the word go. But after he heard me reading the whole script, he asked for an assurance of a complete liberty to be vested into him in carving out a character, that is tinctured with its trademark peculiarities and idiosyncratic traits. Prima facie, it’s been an eye-brow raising revelation to watch Rituda attired as an androgynous man and embracing the mannerisms of a doyen jatra actor who plays women’s kirdaars on stage.
I’ve always wanted to capture the noted jatra artiste (popular folk theatre or street play form of entertainment in West Bengal) Chapal Bhaduri’s multi-dimensional lifestyle and his works on folk dramas. Being a man he always essayed women’s roles with effortless finesse. How seminal that experience would be I wondered! May be psychologically he became a woman trapped inside a man’s body. Isn’t this aspect of a human a fascinating one, who is ideally depicted as ardhnarishwar? After all, a man is not complete without his better-half.
Rituda’s principal purpose was to pitch in himself in this kind of cerebral cinema, wherein he can disseminate his own credo and cherished beliefs.