Screening at Teeside

Yesterday, at Concept Film Night by Teeside University, Teeside we were asked to perform the task of telling a love story in 5 words. It was interesting to hear the imagination of various people and their one-line stories. I too quickly scribbled one –

“Wind Brought Waves to Beach.”

While coming back home I reframed it this way–

“With Wind, Waves Reached Beach”.

It was quite interesting to be a part of the fest watching some thought provoking short films by filmmakers from Northeast, sharing ideas with each of them and the audience. I was invited to the fest to present two of my own films and another one that I edited for my good friend Brijilin, under the banner of Cockroach in Cocktail and one in collaboration with Trinity Pictures and Rolling Coin. The films were My Paper Boat, Mission Escape and Face or Fall.

While seeing the films on a big screen - seeing it being enjoyed, understood and appreciated by a good set of audience - memories of the making of each of them, the cast, the crew- all flashed in mind so loud and clear. Even those tiny bits of fun and fights we had among us while realising them. Shooting of ‘Face of Fall’ at the street in front of my home in Chennai at mid night hours with an unknown autorickshaw driver as an actor, making fun of my good friends in Hexaware Technologies on their life with mouse by showing all the mice escaping from the computers in ‘Mission Escape’, travelling with the my film crew stuck behind me on the bike seat and the Paper Boat boy ‘Arjun’ in front of me on the petrol tank of my good old Yamaha Crux bike, and the camera bag and the tripod hanging on each of the sides – Well, I have answer to the audience to who asked what filmmaking is about and how much it cost. Filmmaking is sharing thoughts, love and ideas. It cost me nothing but friendship and a collective passion and vision.

As the other filmmakers who participated in the event James Harris, Richard MacLeod, Chris Bailey also suggested films are about passion and it costs nothing but passion. To be honest, one of the most thrilling moment for me was, hearing from Chris that he had seen 'My Paper Boat' in shooting people website, much before. It did surprised me on how far and wide internet can take short films. Glad to meet a filmmaker friend who even went one step ahead creating a campaign film to protect the only green space he claimed to have left in the middle of the city Middlesburgh with the film ‘Beacon of Hypocrisy’. While the animation film ‘Answer Yam’ entertained with jokes, films like Life for Life, Passing and Untitled left questions to think about. I truly enjoyed the evening. It was equally interesting to travel back with filmmaker friend Matthew Burge in his car learning more about the history and geography of North East of UK.

I did say this - I like it when films are not made, but happens from nowhere, the way it was always been in my life.

It was not cockroach in cocktail then... As this website id reads it was ‘centurs’. I wanted to call this film club ‘Centurs Creation’. That was 4 years back.

As Wikipedia says - Cen`taurs, a savage race living between Pelion and Ossa, in Thessaly, and conceived of at length by Pindar as half men and half horses, treated as embodying the relation between the spiritual and the animal in man and nature, in all of whom the animal prevails over the spiritual except in Chiron, who therefore figures as the trainer of the heroes of Greece; in the mythology they figure as the progeny of Centaurus, son of Ixion (q. v.) and the cloud, their mothers being mares.

I was always been fascinated by this mythical creature in my childhood, ever since the I first got introduced to Greek Mythology. My slates and books used to be filled with pictures of horses. Centurs can be identified as a good combination of Good and Evil, in other words those qualities we can truly call ‘purely human’. Anyways my intention is not to talk about Centurs here. I just want to share thoughts about a film I did immediately after college days.

After college days, I was in Kerala with Ad filmmaker Vinod A.K for three months. Since then he is my only Guru and the production house ‘Veye’ my second home. All that I did later in life, is what I learned from him.

Those days, I was really confused about the realization of a fiction though I was somehow comfortable crafting a factual film which we call by the name ‘documentary’. Due to some personal reasons I returned back to Chennai and joined a firm called Newmedia Television. It was then the plan of doing a short film came into mind. There were quite a few concepts, but I was so touched by one thought that flashed in mind which was about ‘My Mirror’. I shared it with friends Joseph Alex and Titty Joseph. Both were initially confused, but then got convinced by the storyline.

Anbu said that he would do the camera for us. Friends, Anjana and Soumya quickly accepted the roles I described them. Titty’s classmate Rahul joined as the Production Controller. He also found us the other few very important actors for the film. In fact, the whole process of Mirror was an imitation of what I saw at Veye Films. My intention was to say a powerful story and in that process learn how to do a fiction.

During the whole process we had our own complications. Camera was supposed to be a character, Mr. Mirror and there was a scene in which the protagonist needs to throw the mirror. Anbu tried a lot of ways to identify an appropriate solution, but finally the best was to actually throw the camera. I decided to do the protagonist and in that scene throw the cam to Anbu’s hands and later the other character Soumya would take it and keep it back in the tripod. With our adventurous cameraman, in just two takes, we finished that shot. As soon as I took the cam from tripod and walked, Anbu scrolled down quickly to the other corner and when I threw it he caught it and kept it steady down. In all the other scenes the camera remained

the most obedient actor, ‘My Mirror’. My special regards to Titty who gave different looks for the same room for each scene according to the changing time.

Even after all this, with the final film I realized one thing - it is not conveying anything that I wanted a My Mirror to say and I ended up having a BIG Complex. I even thought of not attempting anymore fictions in life. The mistakes were, doing the film in English, acting the protagonist myself, bad time management, one big mechanical error with camera etc etc. Hence I kept the film hidden in my DVD pouch for almost 3 years. A few months back my friend Sachin happened to see it and told me that he liked the whole concept and I must breathe some life into it. Thus this film happened again. A few weeks back I started re-writing and re-editing it. And today I am presenting you ‘My Mirror’ in a better shape, though I still accept that it still retain a lot of mistakes including me and my language. Kindly accept it as an amateur filmmaker’s first effort exploring the media of film. Thanks.

Warm regards,
Cockroach

Feb 14, 2009 - My 26th Valentines Day thus “passed away”, without much noise leaving me yet, young and yellow. I was handsomely idle at home hooked on one of the old Malayalam books... rather a research material identified recently for a film script that I may or may not realize in this wild-weird-warm lifetime. True to my senses, I have clearly no idea whether I would ever be mature enough to live anyway close to the norms and notions of this day of young excitement. But on this occasion I can’t be just mute on a woman who moved me the most till this date. She is “Yesterday”, a simple African village woman who breathes only for the good of her family. I was never been lucky enough to travel to that country side and see this lady who speaks only her mother tongue Zulu. She suffer from AIDs and lives a simple life with her daughter. I was touched more by her simplicity, her understanding of herself, her way of living the day – today - with the dreams of tomorrow and her disinterest for words of praise. When her mine worker husband came back to the village as a skinny soul during the last stages of AIDs, the village threw him away. Yesterday, as a brave woman built a shed away from the village all by herself and took her husband there where he died happily breathing her warmth. I calls her brave and that teacher from the village too.........but not “Yesterday”. The teacher said “Yesterday, you are a strong lady.” And she replied “No I’m not, I had no other choice. Life has to go on.” She taught me the lesson to live life in a simple and natural way without any expectations. She taught me to behave to the situation. Months after the doctor first diagnosed her ailment, AIDS, she continued to live as a strong woman. The White Lady Doctor had to say this “Yesterday, your body is so strong.” She just smiled and pointed her finger to the head and said, “No it’s all here. I’m not prepared to die until my child go to school.” That moment taught me peace of mind. For a moment I felt as if I’m meditating on a mountain inhaling courage and love. Yesterday is strong, stubborn, silent, soulful and straight forward. For the first time I bowed to a woman... God, she was a "REAL WOMAN". Anyways, I have no other way but to get out of this unrealistic world of cinema and live a normal life. I have no other choice but to identify her as just a movie character. Even if I collect so much money for my travel to African sub-continent, I wouldn't be able to fulfill the dream of seeing this woman. Because she lives in my most favorite film, "Yesterday". A few days back my Amma (mom) asked, “Who do you think you are in love with?” Confused was she as I have this weird habit of making contradictory statements to irritate her. It’s fun to fight with Amma for no reason. ;) I didn’t answer, but left her see the film “Yesterday.”

Later I told her, “Amma, I don’t expect any girl to be 100% Yesterday, but I need her to be at least 1% her. I swear I will be 100% Guido (The funny Italian waiter in the film "Life is Beautiful") for her.......till the end of my life.”

Yours Truly,

I have an open question. Have you ever had the experience of living a story you read in your childhood…. something which you can’t forget for this life time…? I’m sure we all have not just one but quite a lot. There is one such cute story I read in Reader’s Digest sometime in my childhood that still makes me feel excited. The day it came, the date, the title, the author….everything just faded away from my mind…except for the key concept. I read it in my 5th or 6th standard. I don’t remember when and where I got this book from, but sure it was an old copy of Reader’s Digest with more chances of it to be my uncle’s who used to be a lecturer in English. I’m touched by the story since then and had visualized umpteen times in mind.

The idea of making it a short film came to mind hardly two months back, while working. Quickly I shared it with some good friends around and they all joined me in fulfilling this thought. I must thank my colleagues Tintin and Venki for their support first. I was supposed to shoot the film with Tintin but on the location because of some vital constraints as I suggested, Tintin without any hesitation, passed the role to Venki who came with him just to help us out in the shoot. Veni, my friend from MCC was a special surprise for me coz I never thought that she would accept my idea of making her the leading lady of the film. And she just took it as her own responsibility, so I hardly had any trouble in getting the right dialogues and expressions from her.

Two learning experiences from Joebin:

1. The best learning experience for me in the film was Joebin himself, the 6th standard student in the film. He is my friend Deepu’s cousin. I was in the impression that it would be really tough to make kids act and he just proved me wrong. I explained him the story and dialogue only once on the location. After that I was busy explaining Veni about her expressions. In between, Joebin came and ask, “Arun Chetta, what is the dialogue after this?” We all got astonished when he said that he was trying to by heart the dialogues till then. He was in the impression that like in a drama he has to continuously deliver the dialogues. And guess what I never had to tell him, “Boy, now you have to do this”, at any point of the shoot.

2. Joebin who taught me this again. In my planned film, he was not supposed to smile anywhere. And if you now see the film the last smiling shot of Joebin is his creation. You believe or not, even though I had seen the film n number of times this particular shot is sure to bring a smile.

While the presents of my colleague Tintin was a positive energy while shooting the first scene, it was Raita who took that task in the shoot of sec scene. Whether it’s while talking to her or being with her I am happy and confident. Coz as she herself says she has one BIG mouth, that can’t be kept shut…What you say Raita? Guess I must take you to all my shoots. So that I feel free of any tension, laugh a little extra and may be live one extra day or week…

I want to write a few lines about Antony, but revealing his roll in the film may as well take the suspense of the film. So let me just leave it with “thanks……..”. Also my hearty thanks to Anbu and Vadivel for helping with the right location and equipments.

Only two of my films kept me happy from the first day of ideation till its completion, though the excitement levels are always high any film. One is “In Search Peace” and the second is “Yours Truly”. “In Search of peace”, was the visualization of a dream I had. So doing that film was an experience of dreaming again. And “yours truly” made me revisit my childhood.

And a million thanks to the writer of the story who remained successful in keeping his story live in my mind from the time I read it. I have not taken anything else form the real story accept the key concept of it. And the screenplay is made totally different by cutting down all the other characters coming in the story and by making film really crisp with only two scenes and two meetings at two different point of time….showing the intimacy of the two characters and that single promise…

Salaam Cinema

This write-up is in response to a blog written by my beloved friend, creative partner and critic, Somaasri (Soma),

http://somaasri.blogspot.com/2008/05/fighting-like-mad.html

Whenever my media team (Me, Soma and Nithya) is in canteen, it’s not just the coffee that is hot. Being a film enthusiastic lot, the atmosphere naturally gets heated up by cinema and just cinema.

Yesterday wasn’t different as she mentioned in her blog. Everything started with my remarks on the film “Salaam Cinema”, by celebrated Irani filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. True to my inclination towards experimental filmmaking, I was excited about the concept of this documentary film, which the filmmaker’s tribute to the one hundredth anniversary of cinema.

The director holds a casting call for 100 actors to appear in his next film. 5000 people show up, some desperate, some bewildered, and some self-absorbed. Dozens of men and women stand in front of the camera and explain their reasons for coming. They all express a burning, sometimes desperate, desire to work in film. One young man has traveled hundreds of miles pretending to be a blind man because he thinks that will give him an edge. One young woman wants to become a movie star so she can travel to film festivals abroad and see her boyfriend, who has emigrated. Another young man thinks he looks like Paul Newman…etc

Finally, when the director explains to the auditioners that he or she has just played his or her part in the film, each is amazed, uncomprehending. They have very different conceptions of what a film and film-acting should be like. But Makhmalbaf explains at one point, "If cinema reflects social life, then it is for everyone."

Now that’s a quick review of “Salaam Cinema”. But topic of discussion was the objective of filmmaking. Soma was so adamant that every film should convey the message to each and every viewer ( A, B and C class audience as called in India). I was defending her statement. In my view every filmmaker need not think that he should reach everyone. On the objective of filmmaking let’s classify filmmakers as Crappy filmmakers (Agenda: No clue why they are making film), Safe-side filmmakers (Agenda: Successful films for their survival with all safety measures for the success of film), Beautiful filmmakers (Agenda: A beautiful film imitating another beautiful film done in past or in another industry), Experimental filmmakers (Agenda: Break all rules and creates new dimensions for filmmaking inspiring other filmmakers)

Federico Fellini’s '8 ½', Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s ‘Salaam Cinema’, Alexander Sokurov’s ‘Russian Arc’, T. V Chandran’s ‘Danny’ etc, follows this pattern of experimental cinema. They are above all the other categories of filmmaking. In fact when others can be called filmmker, they are the innovators or scientists in cinema.

I’m not against the objectives or other filmmakers. I equally enjoy a crappy film and an experimental film. My simple answer to Soma is that all filmmakers need not think that they have to reach every single viewer. When the other categories of filmmakers target general public, experimental filmmaker reaches or inspires another filmmaker. Now that is his objective. Films need not be for everyone, they can be targeted at a sector of audience too…It is great if a filmmaker becomes the subject of study for another filmmaker.

Sometimes I feel that learning filmmaking is killing the innocence in me to enjoy a crappy film. But at the same time I’m proud that the knowledge of filmmaking is giving some kind of social responsibility. Filmmaking is a mission as well as a passion above profession.

Born into Brothels

"I want to show in pictures how people live in this city. I want to put across the behavior of man." Gour (13) said.

Gour is one among the eight kids who communicated to audience through their photographs on the life of ‘NO' hope lived by those who dwell in red light area of Kolkata, in Zana Briski’s Oscar winning documentary film “Born into Brothels.” The other kids are – Avijit (11), Kochi (10), Manik (10), Puja (11), Shanti (11), Suchitra (14) and Tapasi (11) too.

A few weeks back I got a chance to see this documentary that left me deep in thought for hours. Whenever I am fascinated by something, the first thing I does is to google for more details on it. Undoubtedly the search on it led to so many facts on this film, the crew and its cast. Added to that, the controversial remarks as well as the critical rewards. Let me not try looking into the authenticity of it…Let me just be frank on what I loved about this film.

There are a few advantages documentary films have over any fiction. That is nothing but the flexibility on pre-production, production and post-production. Moreover, an uncertain nature of the past, present and future of the film as well as the hardwork and adventure involved in each stage of its fulfillment. A natural documentary filmmaker should have only one objective- to bring the truth in the most appealing form. Documentaries are hence appreciated for the innocence, influence, trustworthiness and reach of its content and not for the beauty or the form of film.

In both the ways “Born into Brothels” is a remarkable film. The content as well as form of this film touch the heart of any genuine viewer. Hats off to the very special thought of filmmaker for ‘living the film’ rather than just ‘doing the film’.

Briski, a documentary photographer, went to Kolkata (Calcutta) to photograph prostitutes. While there, she befriended their children and offered to teach the children photography to reciprocate being allowed to photograph their mothers. The children were given cameras so they could learn photography and possibly improve their lives. It is nothing but the photographs taken by the kids that tells you their story. The narration is by the kids themselves as well as the filmmaker. The children's work was exhibited, and one boy (Avijit) was even sent to a photography conference in Amsterdam. Briski also recorded her efforts to place the children in boarding schools.

Born into Brothels, by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski, is the winner of the 77th annual Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It is a tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art.

What we must be appreciating is the true interest filmmaker took to showcase facts though the eyes of children in the most innocent and touching manner as well as the excellent effort they took to save the children from their terrible reality. As a filmmaker I was fascinated by the style of naration, innocence of concept, smooth editing and creative placement of visuals. The music goes well with the mood. Three cheers for the filmmaker's efforts on this cause.

Visit the site: http://www.kids-with-cameras.org for more.