short yet to be titled

poster for the short film we are working on. basically this was done for casting.

here's what i think of the dark knight...

this is without question the best superhero movie ever...and it further strngthens the fact that batman is THE superhero of all time...

the film starts of superbly with the intro of the JOKER...which makes jack nicholson's version look comical... heath ledger makes you squirm in your seats.. and that too whenever he's not in the film. He just rips through the entire first half..pure maddness!! The action sequences are simply insane and suprbly executed.By the end of the 1st half i was just plain terrifed at the thought of how much more menacing and dark the film could get!!

The second half clearly belongs to the dark knight and not suprisingly the film becomes a little super heroish towards the end which is, a chance that we can allow Mr Chris Nolan to take, coz the rest of the film is simply BRILLIANT..

latest film to be released.....hmm.. !!!smack!!...

watch out for these fellass! esp.. THE DARK KNIGHT which is being hailed as THE movie u shud not miss.. ,pixars latest WALL-E...

also among heroes makin a return is HELLBOY in guillermo del toro's second shot at the comic..
an there's TERMINATOR SALVATION (CHRISTIAN BALE...yippe!!), WATCHMEN...plus others

stuff you can expect ....

guys.. one of the few respectable film makers in the indian industry..

Interview Anurag Kashyap (Part 1) : A Man With A Vision

Okay, agreed that I have been tad bit lazy with my Interview section and won’t blame my folly onto others but my own self. Though I don’t believe in making New Year resolutions but this time round I have promised myself to indulge in activities that bring pure pleasure and interviewing people excelling in their personal and/or professional lives happens to be one of them.

So with the New Year kicking in - I present to you an interview with one of the most-talked about writer/director of recent months, who also happens to be a blogger on a popular Bollywood blog, Mr. Anurag Kashyap.

Before you begin, would like to inform you that this interview took place about 5 months back (when Anurag had not formally announced his latest venture “No Smoking” with John Abraham) so some of the things said might seem a bit outdated. Ya fine, you can sue me later.

Please tell us something about yourself before your journey into Bollywood?

I was in Delhi for further studies, totally clueless and confused. I was doing things that people are not supposed to be doing. I was very heavily in drugs and totally mixed up as hell. My father wanted me back in Lucknow; he is GM in UP state’s Electricity board. I was studying Zoology and at one point wanted to be a Scientist. But infact I just couldn’t bring myself to settle on anything.

And what lead you to Bollywood?

A friend of mine in Delhi introduced me to a theatre group called Jannata Manch. We use to do a lot of street plays. And then I attended a Film Festival in Delhi itself where I landed up seeing a total of 55 films. Movies from all different perspectives and in a way you can say that these films changed my life and it’s meaning completely for me. Just that one film festival and I decided that this is what I want to be a part of - in next five months I was in Mumbai.

How did ‘Paanch’ come about?

Paanch came about over a period of time. It started within the first six months of mine in the city; I basically had no place to stay and was practically living on streets. Thankfully at that time father Francis of Xavier’s college allowed me to stay at their hostel for a month, this I am talking was around September 1993. Over there I use to hang out a lot with a band called Greek. I saw how they went about their life, their working as a band, their struggles, their frustrations - which I started writing done in bits and pieces. Can you believe I still have that tiny notebook with me! I wrote around 40 pages at that time, which came out like a script. And then after a year or two, I saw this Romeo & Juliet play by Vikram Kapadia where ex-VJ/musician Luke Kenney had played a role. I really liked Luke and was very impressed with his work. I had specifically written the character Luke in Paanch for Luke Kenny. I met up with him later on and tough he was not-very interested in films but he said that he would go thru over it again. Then he just disappeared after that.

Then we all we went on our own paths but the film was never completely written. The character Joy was actually written for Joy and then there this friend of mine on whom I wrote the character Pondi and that’s how everything started joining-up but still I had only those 40 pages. Then in 1995 I started working with Shivam Nair (who has directed Ahista Ahista) who is basically my guru and helped me learn a lot of things. At that time he was doing a crime-series and I ended up writing one episode for them. There was this research work going on over a real-life murder case which really fascinated me. The characters in the murder case jelled with my incomplete movie. And once the show was out, I started working on my movie and finished it by 1996-97 around the time I was also working on Satya.

How did you go about the casting of the film and landed up selecting most of the un-known faces then?

Well for starters I always had Kay Kay in mind. It was like a revenge thing for me because he was known as our guru types during our theatre days, he and Makrand Deshpande. And during one play rehearsal they had actually locked me in a room for nearly 11 hours just to get one movement right. Na jokes apart; I actually had Kay Kay in mind to play the role of the cop. Then I narrated the script to Ram Gopal Verma, which he liked but nothing came about. Then I approached many people but no one was interested. Then I met up with Raveena Tandon and Manoj Bajpai, who were very excited about it initially but that too flattened out because they kind of money they were expecting, etc. Nobody was ready to give me big amount of money because the subject was too radical at that time.

During that time I did a short film with Kay Kay and that’s when I discovered what a great actor he is - And decided to take him for the lead role. The movie was being produced by Sudhir Mishra who had given me a budget of 50 Lakhs for the film. After couple of months I bumped into Tejaswanni at a Christmas party and felt that she was the right one for the film and landed up taking her in as well.

Then what happened was that I met up with Tutu Sharma since I was writing the story of one of the films he was producing. He then causally asked me which other scripts I had written and I told him about Paanch. He got really excited with the script plus when he found out that his sister-in-law Tejaswanni was also init, he wanted to be a part of it. Then he Sudhir pushed me towards him saying that Tutu was definitely a bigger producer and the finance part for the film will also improve.

But the thing was that he wanted me to cast a few well-known names as well but I was just basically pissed-off with the industry. I mean, I had walked out on Ram Gopal Verma, I left Mission Kashmir half way because I was not happy with the way things were shaping up and then Water was not happening because of well-known problems. Raveena and Manoj had backed out on me, so I had decided that I will make my film with only newcomers.

But what made you have so much faith in newcomers?

See the thing with me is that I can only work with people who have trust in me. Who know me and know the way I work about things. Plus with newcomers, you will see that they have a lot more hunger to work and do something good with their roles and their parts.

I mean today you look at where Kay Kay, everybody wants him in their movies. The cameraman of Paanch is today nearly the highest paid camera man in the industry, working in big movies like Parineeta. The editor today is working with Nikhil Advani and Farhan Akhtar. The art director is also very well recognized for his work and has done movies like Taxi 9 2 11. In all I feel that a great team came together at that time. You can say it was also anger because everything was so star driven and it is still the same today.

Finally now I am also working with a star.

But then another reason was that I wanted to stick to my script even if it meant making a low-budget film. See, I believe a movie does well if it is made well and not because God wants it to run well. Plus I like working with actors who are ready to give me all and these were the guys I had worked in theatre with and they were ready to give their whole in my film.

What is the status on the film’s release?

Well that question only Mr. Tutu Sharma can answer. I have no idea.

How are things looking for the release of your 2nd movie, “Black Friday”?

Black Friday hopefully will release soon. Because for the last 10 years the court case is going but it’s most likely to be released soon.

What made you do a movie on Mumbai Riots?

It’s because of the book. When I read the book by Mr. S. Hussain, it put everything for me in perspective. It kind off inspired me in many ways and I decided to work on it. The book came to me via Mr. Mitra who wanted me to make a tele-series on it and I said lets make a movie. And then we struggled for a structure for a very long and when that was locked down, I went and edited the film.

And then all this fiasco happened. The censor board had given a clean-chit to Black Friday, they even believed in Black Friday. It’s just because of the stay-order put by two accused in the Mumbai blasts case and because of them the film is stuck.

What do you think about the censor board’s stand in today’s Bollywood?

See the censor board is changing gradually. I am against issue like when they had asked to ban cigarette smoking in films. I mean how can you do something like this, if you it to be banned the do it completely. But the fact is our government doesn’t have the balls to ban manufacturing of cigarette or tobacco for that matter. But they can’t do so because of the stacks load of money involved.

Basically films and cinema is a soft target for everybody. Be it religion, communities or government. There are too many other censors in this country. The actual censor board is for that matter redundant because today any and everyone can raise a voice against a film, be it for just or un-just reasons.

But if you ask me personally, I am anti-censorship.

So in your opinion censorship should be abolished?

Yes. See what I mean is that when you go abroad to a movie store like Virgin or something, there you will find all varieties of films be it movies for kids or porn films. Basically a person should be given the right to decide what he/she wants to watch and incase of us directors/producers what we want to make.

You can have the age certification for films - forget 18, say under 21 can’t watch this film or people who can’t think for themselves can’t watch it. But you can’t ban or cut films.

There are many who feel that the Indian censor board is partial and they tend to favor a few well-known production houses. What is your take on this?

Censor board is not partial but completely partial and biased. For me, firstly they are not uniform. They don’t maintain the same standards for all, for example when it comes to Yash Raj Films all of sudden all government rules, bans, etc everything relaxes.

For instance, it’s very difficult to shoot at railway stations and trains and it’s really difficult to get permissions. But in Bunty Aur Babli for Rani’s train song they broke a train window, they basically destroyed government property. A film like Neil n Nikki gets a “U” certificate for God sake. But nobody points a finger at them where as others get pulled up for even minor issues.

Even Salaam Namaste had a kissing scene init, I am not saying ban them but when there were other films with similar scenes these people made huge issues over them but not on Yash Raj Banner. It basically boils down to where you are coming from and how big your backing is.

Another example is of my film Paanch. They wanted me to cut the scene where the word “Chutiya” was used. I told them that such words were used in films like Satya, which they had cleared then why not here. They just said that you can’t use past examples in here or talk about other films. In short, there are too many egos you have to deal with when you sit with those four people and everyone has their own agenda. So that’s the problem. Its like they have wooden cane for low-budget films, iron cane for others and golden cane for others.

But thankfully things are changing for the better over time with changing of chairmanship. And hopefully they will attain uniformity while implementing their policies.

What is the most frustrating thing about directing for you? Or you prefer script-writing?

No I love making films but the problem is of films not releasing. The most frustrating thing in this country is that people don’t understand what an original idea is. And they don’t understand something till they have not seen it no wonder DVDs are sold so easily. You won’t believe I get nearly five times more in amount for copying a film than writing an original film.

And with this I say films like Mixed Doubles or Anwar they are original concepts.

Producers and directors don’t have enough money to make a film than where will they pay a writer to write something different something new.

But then if you pick up a successful DVD film and they will be ready to pay you any amounts. Because this way it’s easy to attract stars. See all these famous people have their own fantasies and desires, so if you tell them I am making a Mission Impossible and want you to play Tom Cruise’s role in it or making Kill Bill and need you as Uma Thurman then they get excited.

Then there is this feudalism still existing in this industry. For instance, Fanna was banned in Gujarat which I think was total bullshit. But never before you saw the industry people coming out as a family and then I read a front page article in Mid-Day where Hrithik Roshan was talking about democracy. I remember him watching a private screening of Black Friday and loving the film and then for one month trying to get me to do Krrish and talking about other things. That was that and nobody talked. He didn’t understand democracy then. But now because it was a Yash Raj film they all started voicing their opinion, giving interviews on democracy and freedom of speech and all.

So for me this selective democracy, selective secularism and selective rights is what bothers me about this industry. And if you look at it from any which way, you have these few families in this industry who run the show. They are actually like a mafia and they are the bullies and they play like bullies and that’s the sad part. There is so much talent but it gets lost in these fringes. We have more hypocrisy and bifurcation and that’s the main worry for people like me.

Do you think there is a lack of good scripts in Bollywood?

No. Actually we have no good producers. And right from Yash to a one film producer nobody understands an original script. I meet lot of talented writers but nobody wants to produce their film because they prefer the tried and test formula kinds. Only if you manage to get hold of someone who thinks what he thinks will work and have massive financial backing, only then you can get a green signal for your script.

So systematically good writers are simply skinned. I know many writers who are today writing what they never wanted to but now they have no choice but to flow with the flow. I know many who are loaded with original scripts but nobody wants to touch them, they see the size of the script and say, who wants to read it, tell the story in two lines and such things.

How would you describe your relationship with Kay Kay Menon?

Kay Kay to me is a good friend, more like an older brother. We don’t get to interact much because I am most of the time in my room and he too is a very private person. So we land up meeting for cricket matches and the only place where I don’t like him is when he is on the cricket field. He is a very bad looser and if he starts loosing, he gets really angry and upset. He is the captain of our team and an overly passionate cricket lover.

But off the field he is an awesome guy and a great friend.

Which actor/actress you would like to work with in the near future?

You know the sad bit is that the two actors I would really like to work with would never work with me. One is Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and the other is Mr. Naseeruddin Shah who has already turned me down twice, one for Black Friday and then for another script.

What is your take on ‘casting couch’ in Bollywood?

Casting Couch ofcouse it exists. See there can be no smoke without fire but then you can’t even blame just one person for it. I would say that its couch of convenience where two parties exists. And then you also casting back seat of car, casting hotel room, casting Khandala, etc. etc.

Any of the recent movie, you wish you were part off?

Hindi…hmmm. Well there are quite a few, I wish I was part of Omkara in any which way. Or Maqbool, Company which is my favourite Ram Gopal Verma film. After that he has made nothing but all crap films.

What’s your take on Rang De Basanti?

I really liked the film. I know the ending a bit utopian in terms of execution and all but I think the movie was good. It was total entertaining. I know some who don’t like the film for what it stands for and take it very seriously but I feel that the film has done more good than bad. Like I think at least it made students discuss politics, think about it and see the state of the nation. It may be accurate and all but when you are kids you do tend to react the way the characters in that film did.

What movie genres hold special interest for you?

I like a lot of films. But Noir is my favourite and I like a lot of short films. I love graphic novels like Sin City, Head On, 36, etc. I also like what is coming out Japan and Korea. And every good film I like I buy.

What do you think about Bollywood’s acceptance in the International circuit?

I don’t think Bollywood is accepted. I go to these international festivals and we are seen as a big joke. They say, oh you have nice dance and songs in your film and things like that. But they surely don’t take us seriously. And we ourselves don’t take cinema seriously and frankly we don’t care. In all these festivals and shows, you will find that the ones they don’t trust our Indians because they are scared that we won’t send the film prints on time or back out last minute.

I have seen many times people promising, committing and then not being bothered to fulfill them. So therefore they refrain from dealing with Indians.

How would you define ‘crossover cinema’?

Its nothing but bullshit. As per the definition it is a film made in India and done well overseas but if you look at films like Bend it like Beckham and Monsoon Wedding then they are not because they were produced by people outside of India. In India nobody would have put a rupee in it at that time. There is one film made in India called Samsara, which has yet not been released and this is the case for the past five years. It did a fantastic job overseas, made over 25 million worldwide but in India nobody has heard of it so much so not even the Indian film industry knows of it. So crossover is a bastardized term, we have people saying that they are making films for big festivals, like Cannes. But frankly the Cannes people don’t even care about what we make.

What do think about the whole remake trend going these days? Would you consider directing such a movie, if offered?

Well it is business. And it’s not only here but everywhere. As I said earlier our industry is controlled by these seven or eight people and they have the power to decide what will be shown and what will not. Plus these guys don’t understand originality and therefore are pleased with repeating what’s been already done. So now when they run out of the tried-n-tested scripts they are now getting on with the re-make trend.

But we don’t care; even though we are a loss making industry compared to others around the world we are still happy within ourselves. We don’t want to look outside our well, which is again a major drawback.

Can you tell us something on your new and forthcoming films?

Well there is this script I wanted to do for the past eight years, it’s called “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health” (now called No Smoking) and finally it’s coming together. Plus I finally get to work with a big star; John Abraham is the lead in it. He was the only guy who within five minutes from hearing the script said he wanted to do this film. Then I had no producer, so he said not to worry and he will get one. And he was ready to do whatever for the film and that sort of enthusiasm is what I wanted to see from him.

And I would say that it was he who made me even more excited over the script. Now Kumar Mangat is producing the film and it’s a comedy thriller.

After this I shall continue my quest in making better films.

Well things have surely changed a lot and that too for the better for Anurag. His forthcoming film No Smoking is being looked at as one of the most awaited films of 2007 and not only that his much talked about film Black Friday was given a green signal by Mumbai court and released this Friday.

Initial reports and reviews have been fantastic and in all praises for the young director. So one can say that Anurag has finally made his entry in Bollywood and that too in a big way, though I wonder if he thinks all this has been worth the wait.

Anyways armed with clear intentions, a strong mind, giving-a-damn attitude and more importantly passionate love for cinema - Anurag has managed tear down the Bollywood barriers but whether this newly found world of lime-light and glamour manages to burn down his very same passion (like it has done to many others) or not is something only time will tell.

hmmm...

So finally i have joined the endless list of bloggerss...