“Creating a film is engaging and entertaining if you do not thrust a message down the throats of the audience”

Award-winning filmmaker BRAHMANAND SINGH tells JYOTHI VENKATESH

The last feature film that you had directed in Hindi was Jhalki, which was also your debut film. How was the experience?

Jhalki was a film which spoke about courage and hope. Jhalki is what she is totally because of her self-belief and immense love for her younger brother. She has a razor beam focus, much like an artist or an entrepreneur and that is why she is unstoppable.

How did Prakash Jha step in to the picture?

When Prakash Jha and I after getting to know how Kailash Satyarthi tracks down thousands of trafficked children, rescues them and reconnects them back to their families or rehabilitates them if their families can’t be traced, we felt we must make a film on this so that a certain awareness is created and the problem is addressed by more and more people. While Prakash Jha was busy with his own films, he felt that this is a beautiful film and we must do it.

Go on!

Eventually, I took it up with co-writers Kamlesh Kunti Singh and Tanvi Jain and got going with the script. The film started getting momentum from platforms like NFDC’s Film Bazaar, Atlantic Film Festival’s Strategic Partners, UK Film Council, Mahindra-Sundance script lab and so on. A few got interested in funding it but would put across strange soft demands like why don’t we make the young girl grow up older and incorporate a kotha or a rape scene for even more impact for the trafficking scene. But all these looked forced, just for a certain commercial angle, so we decided to stick to the purity of purpose until we found like-minded people who helped us make the film. The kind of reach and impact (24 festivals, 14 awards and counting) that we have managed with the film is a testimony that we did the right things with the film.

How tough or easy was it to find the right cast?

We started looking out for a powerful and firebrand type of a girl the right leading character. It was quite tough because it was a kind of feminist film with role reversal of sorts since here, unlike the prevalent boy-saves-girl norm; it is the girl character here which saves the boy. We felt that the film needed a new child artiste instead of seeking a face from TV or films. We auditioned around 150 plus kids and shortlisted 28 first and then 12 and to 4, finally. We had a slight Bhojpuri language backdrop and did a workshop finally with the chosen four, grooming them in acting as all of us were facing the camera for the very first time. 

How was Aarti, who played the girl who rescues her brother?

Aarti is a very shy and composed girl but the moment the camera is on, she transforms into a good actress, ready to do whatever the character needs to do or behave. We shot at 48 degrees for 45 days in Mirzapur on a tight budget. It was not a very tiny budget either because I did not position it as a children’s film as I did not want it to be a shoddy film by way of production values. Further, to create that awareness and impact that the film intends to, it has to be seen by the parents’ as well and not just children. We took the film to different villages to create awareness in order to reduce child trafficking offenses and let the children identify the traffickers in their own villages and also initiate action against them. In a similar way, schools have taken a liking for the film since Jhalki embodies a lot of leadership qualities like courage, perseverance, laser sharp focus, problem solving mind-set and an ability to relate an abstract concept like a folk story with real life situations.

How easy was the task of casting of the actors?

I was really fortunate that all my actors responded very well when I wanted to cast them in my film. I sent a WhatsApp to Boman Irani that his role was very small but very significant and he immediately agreed in five minutes and so sweetly asked me not to bother about his positioning in the film. That he was playing Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, who has saved the lives of over 85,000 children in his lifetime, no matter how small a role, was big for him. I cast Govind Namdeo who is very popular in the village because he is the default money-lender, but on the filp side he is openly involved in child trafficking though a respected person in the village. The casting of Divya Dutta, Tannishta Chatterjee, Govind Namdeo and Sanjay Suri also was easy, because they could relate with the pathology of the social malaise and wanted to come on board.

You have a background of journalism. Isn’t it?

My back ground as a journalist who had earlier directed award-winning documentaries on icons like RD Burman, Jagjit Singh and many other relevant subjects. Eventually, writing and filmmaking is storytelling and I have always had a good sense of cinema as well as storytelling.

What difference do you find between making a documentary film and a feature film?

There are a lot of differences between making a documentary and a feature film. In documentaries of the kind that I make, I shoot a lot and then weave a story. Whereas in fiction, you weave a story, fine-tune to perfection across many drafts, rehearse a bit and fine tune it further, then set out to shoot with actors who improvise on it but with a lot of planning and make it in a particular period of time. When you make a documentary, depending upon the kind of the film you are making, you select tons of archival footage which is a painstaking but delightful task followed by making it work in your storytelling effectively. Same archival footage used in a particular way will have an X impact while used in another way, will have a Y impact.

Can you elaborate?

In a feature film you have to keep control too many variables at the same time, including, the control on script, which many actors want to sometimes sway it in his or her favour but it seldom works. Improvisation is good but the hamming can go out of hand. You should let an actor improvise, add to the value but yet not let him or her go haywire, as a director. A director has to be an artist first but in addition, if he has a way with people, even better. The spirit is high, no one feels insulted, even if you don’t let the person run away with his or suggestions all the time. They understand your reservations and even respect you for that.

You have never ever assisted any director to learn your craft. Why?

There is no particular reason as such. I wanted to assist Shyam Benegal but it didn’t happen, I wanted to assist Mahesh Bhatt but it didn’t happen. I wanted to assist Vinod Chopra, was almost on the verge but again it never happened. I never assisted anyone except one or two directors in 1994-95 for a few weeks each, on some documentary projects also because I needed to survive.

Go on!

I came to Mumbai in 1993 and had seen a few other filmmakers who I admire, having assisted many stalwarts for years. I realized it is one way of learning but not the only way of learning. You pick a lot of craft while assisting, you get very inspired by the people you assist but the vision has to be yours. Satyajit Ray had told Aparna Sen when he suggested she should become a director and she said she doesn’t know the ABCD of filmmaking, he said, that’s something that you will manage, what you have and what no one else can give you ever, is a vision. Shyam Babu too told me Ray never assisted any one, he (Shyam Babu himself) never assisted anyone, Shekhar Kapoor never assisted anyone. I got quite excited and I thought if I can be on the same venerable chain, why not march to the sound of your own drums.

Was the film in R.D. Burman the first documentary film that you had made?

You could say it was the first big or prominent documentary that I had made.  I had earlier made 20-60 minute long films like Asgari Bhai, A Burden of Love, Ragpickers, Uncaging the Body etc and many of them did very well in the festival circuit, picking up awards etc. But before Pancham Unmixed, I had not realized that a documentary too can be mainstream and also reach out to a huge audience. Everything, I realized, depends on the subject you chose, the scale you opt for and the way you position it. Even if you have made a masterpiece, unless it gets proper partnerships and positioning, it remains unnoticed.   

What did you learn while shooting documentaries?

In the process of making documentaries, I realized that I have the ability to tell a story well. That stays at the bottom of all filmmaking or rather, all communication. In addition, it made me understand that a raw frame can be equally powerful or sometimes even more and you don’t have to always sanitize your frames. If you shoot an ad film in a hut in a village, you should not clean the chair for the shot. Also, whether documentary or features, your treatment should be engaging and entertaining and you should not thrust a message down the throats of the audience. Message, if at all, should be subliminal.

Where does journalism find a place in your scheme of things as of now?

Journalism continues to be a passion with me but its shape has changed now. If earlier I used to write as many as 2000 pieces in a span of 10 years, now I write 100 pieces in two years. But more of my time goes on scripts as well as the talks that I get invited to give or the jury/selection panels of awards, festivals and competitions that I get roped in for. Actually, journalism and filmmaking are essentially different sides of the same coin in the sense that with both, you communicate and you reach out to crores of people. With both film making and journalism, you touch people’s hearts, change mindsets as well as break perceptions. With both, you are do good while enjoying the things you want to do.

What next?

I am working on a film on Rumi. It is a four-country co-production (Canada-France-India-Turkey), to be shot in Toronto and Turkey. I am also developing a feature film on a musician and his life with a person with a huge age gap.  While these two films are in the development stage, another film, with an Alzheimer’s backdrop, is ready to go on floor. We are in talks with the key stars and will be announcing it soon. It is on a father- son relationship, and on the unsaid bonds of love and redemption. I am also planning to produce a series of docu-biopics as well.