Shot Circuit

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One hardly expects Gaurav Bakshi to adhere to the stereotype of an independent filmmaker. Having an MBA degree from IIM-Bangalore, the 41-year-old with 15 years’ work experience as a marketing executive for Hindustan Unilever decided to throw it all away and start professional life afresh as a filmmaker. “I realised I was taking a big risk and it was not the right age for me to show such bravura, but it was also the age where I went through a mid-life crisis and I was ready to take the plunge and dive headlong into cinema,” he says. After having assisted such renowned “indie” directors like Dibakar Bannerjee and Abhishekh Chaubey, he recently released his first solo project, Reincarnation.
The likes of Bakshi have steadily been rising through the ranks in recent years. Perhaps fuelled by what is happening in Bollywood, where small-time filmmakers with small budgets and audacious scripts have taken the industry by storm, even the short film market is in its boom period now. Using handheld cameras or even their mobile phones, they make films on shoestring budgets, all the time juggling day jobs and fighting the odds just to make their kind of cinema. The reward at the end of all these struggles? A chance to showcase it at the top film festivals and critical acclaim from directors.
Srinivas Sunderrajan, 26, is one such. His film, The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project, was made with just `40,000, but has won rave reviews both in India and abroad. “The biggest challenge was sticking to the budget. Most of the cast and crew were my friends, so I didn’t have to pay anybody. I also didn’t spend money on hiring sets and locations, instead used real locations like local trains, cafés and restaurants, offices and houses,” he laughs.
Often these filmmakers even take up odd jobs to keep themselves in the loop. Chaitanya Tamhane, whose short film Six Strands debuted at the IFFI in Goa, says, “I worked with Balaji Telefilms as a scriptwriter for a few years, and even though it was great pocket money, I decided that my sensibilities have changed. I then made a documentary on plagiarism in Indian cinema and worked with UTV Palador for a while. It was all just to keep myself occupied till I made my own film,” he says.
For some others, it still remains a hobby; something to pursue as a passion rather than a profession. Abhiraj Purandhare, a Pune-based German language professor, who’s made a couple of short films and documentaries says, “I’m working on a full length feature film script now and it will demand more of my time and energy, but I’ll juggle both,” he says.
Due to people like these and several others, for the entire independent film genre, 2010 has been a watershed year. With Indian film festivals gaining prominence internationally, things can only get better come 2011.