‘I do not understand how lengthy cinema will survive.’

{Photograph}: Type courtesy Goutam Ghose

Goutam Ghose is certainly one of India’s most celebrated modern film-makers.

He has bagged a number of Nationwide Movie Awards, together with the Golden Peacock for Greatest Movie (Moner Manush) on the forty first Worldwide Movie Pageant of India.

He’s additionally the proud recipient of the Vittorio De Sica Award in Italy, 1997, and in 2006, was awarded the Knighthood of the Star of the Italian Solidarity.

Ghose, who turns 75 on July 24, continues to be chasing cinematic adventures.

In a two-part interview, he tells Rediff Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya, “This 12 months, on the first Asian Artwork Movie Award in Macau, my son and I received the Greatest Cinematography Award collectively. I do not find out about world cinema, however I do not suppose there is a precedent in Indian cinema for a father-son duo profitable an award collectively.”

How does it really feel to herald a milestone birthday?

I do not depend the years I’ve lived. So long as my spirit is alive, I am advantageous.

(Smiles) I’ve no excellent money owed, I do not pay EMIs. That offers me peace of thoughts, the liberty to chase adventures and sure, write haikus too.

What’s the biggest problem film-makers are going through at this time?

Their biggest problem is easy methods to separate cinema from Reels.

At this time, we often shoot from simply two angles; we both click on an image or take a selfie.

Actually, I do not understand how lengthy cinema will survive. Perhaps in future, it’s going to turn out to be like opera, taking part in to a choose viewers.

However all just isn’t misplaced but as a result of the small, digital digicam has actually benefited indie film-makers, making film-making simpler and cheaper.

Taking pictures on celluloid was very costly. Your script and pre-production needed to be watertight to make sure that no uncooked inventory was wasted.

I nonetheless comply with the self-discipline instilled by celluloid.

Once I shot Raahgir: The Wayfarers, which is lastly releasing after 5 years, my actors, Tillotoma Shome, Neeraj Kabi and Adil Hussain, had been stunned I did not need to take the shot from completely different angles as is widespread at this time.

I informed them that for me, each shot is a grasp shot as a result of whereas working within the celluloid period, significantly in Bengal with a stringent funds, we largely adopted a 3:1 ratio and will go for a most of three takes.

Within the digital age, younger film-makers like my son Ishaan can work way more freely even inside a decent funds.

Jhilli, the primary function movie Ishaan directed, was shot in a dhapa (rubbish floor) in Kolkata with characters drawn from that space.

He used a small Sony digicam, Sony A7, Canon 16-35mm lens and a hand-held stabiliser, recreating the sound fully throughout post-production.

I keep in mind throughout Paar, I additionally shot with Shabana (Azmi) and Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) on the busy streets of Kolkata, however I used to be wielding a heavier, extra conspicuous digicam, and we managed to tug off the shoot solely as a result of my stars had been fully unrecognisable due to their costumes and make-up.

 

IMAGE: Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi in Paar.

Paar received three Nationwide Awards, together with the UNESCO Award on the Venice Worldwide Movie Pageant in 1985, with Naseer profitable the Volpi Cup for Greatest Actor.
It was additionally the recipient of the FIPRESCI Award and the Purple Cross Award on the Verna Movie Pageant and even after 4 a long time, you might be nonetheless remembered for this 1984 Bengali movie about two Dalit fugitives.

Many nonetheless keep in mind Satyajit Ray for Pather Panchali, his first movie as a director, and Shyam Benegal would sigh that he’ll at all times be recognized for his debut directorial Ankur.

So, not simply me, this occurs with loads of different film-makers as effectively.

Once I made Paar, I did not have the benefit of visible results.

Shabana and Naseer, together with the remainder of the crew, truly risked their lives, the latter virtually drowning twice, crossing the gushing Hooghly river with a herd of pigs and that crossing stays unforgettable.

Whether or not it’s Paar, Antarjali Yatra, Padma Nadir Majhi or your most up-to-date movie Parikrama, the river has been a leitmotif in your narratives.

Sure. One purpose for this might be that my household, throughout Partition, got here as refugees from Faridpur in East Bengal (now Bangladesh).

It’s situated on the banks of the river Padma and I’ve heard tales of the river from my grandmother and father.

I used to be born in Kolkata and West Bengal is maybe the one state to be bordered by lofty mountains within the North and the Bay of Bengal within the South, the meandering valleys in between certain by water our bodies.

I grew up taking part in soccer, hockey and cricket by the Hooghly, also called the Kali-Ganga and Bhagirathi-Hooghly river.

I might sit by the river and keep in mind that it was this waterway which had introduced the Portuguese, French, Dutch and at last, the English to India.

Additionally, from the time we’re conceived to our delivery, we’re swimming in our mom’s womb, so the river is embedded in my unconscious.

(Laughs) Govind Nihalani would jokingly say that given my obsession with the river, I will need to have been a fish in my earlier delivery.

IMAGE: Chitrangda Singh and Marco Leonardi in Parikrama.

One understands your fascination with Padma and the Hooghly. However how did you come to helm an Indo-Italian co-production revolving across the river Narmada?

Parikrama relies on a kids’s novella, The Story of Lala, written by my Italian producer-friend Sergio Scapagnini.

He gave me the manuscript to learn, superbly illustrated by his three daughters, and it touched my coronary heart.

In 1999, the Italian version received the celebrated Elsa Morante-Isola di Arturo Award and thereafter, Sergio needed to return out with an English translation.

I beneficial the novella to my good friend V Okay Karthika who was agreeable to Purple Panda, Westland Books, publishing it in English, supplied they may carry a blurb on the e-book cowl stating that it might quickly be filmed by Gautam Ghose.

As I had informed Sergio virtually twenty years in the past, I might see a movie on this inspiring story of an 11-year-old boy from Raipur, who runs away to Mumbai hoping to make sufficient cash to purchase a chunk of land so his tenant farmer father doesn’t must beg in entrance of the tax collector when crops fail.

However I needed to provide the story a bigger, extra layered context.

So, you introduced within the Narmada?

Sure. Within the postscript, Sergio had written that he met Lala in Mumbai, whereas strolling on Juhu seashore.

I made a decision to orchestrate their assembly within the Narmada Valley after studying Amrit Lal Vegad’s e-book Narmada: River of Magnificence, which describes his parikrama (pilgrimage) round India’s oldest river.

Legend has it that in case you have a look at the Narmada even as soon as, it will probably carry you salvation.

My movie begins in Italy, with a documentary film-maker, Alexander (performed by Marco Leonardi of Cinema Paradiso and Maradona, Hand of God fame) as he prepares for his journey to India to shoot a documentary on the annual Narmada parikrama.

Alexander, the second protagonist I created, meets Lala, the primary, at Amarkantak, the supply of the Narmada.

He learns that the younger hawker boy’s (performed by Aayan Badkul) house and village had been submerged by the reservoir challenge and decides to attract him into his documentary.

Life when juxtaposed with loss of life is ironic and Alexander’s son Francesco has misplaced his mom whereas Lala, who’s across the identical age, has been distanced from each, his delivery mom and his metaphorical mom, the Narmada.

Whereas following the river, the movie follows their lives too.

IMAGE: Goutam Ghose with son Ishaan and Chitrangda Singh on the units of Parikrama. {Photograph}: Type courtesy Chitrangda Singh/Instagram

Did not Sergio object to modifications in his authentic story?

No. He respects me as a film-maker and informed me that I might adapt his e-book freely.

(Laughs) I had met him on the Venice movie competition the place after a screening of Paar, he chased me, shouting, ‘Mr Ghose, I’ve seen your movie, might I communicate to you?’

We subsequently grew to become good buddies.

What I cherished about his story is that younger Lala, regardless of all his trials and tribulations, doesn’t lose hope or braveness, as he migrates to the town and makes a hit of his life.

Sergio launched me to this rich man who dealt in diamonds and had places of work in Europe and Rajasthan.

I later learnt that the person was Lala and he had not misplaced his humour or humility.

(Smiles) The children I met within the Narmada Valley throughout my recce for Parikrama had the identical cheeky humour.

Your son and also you labored collectively on Parikrama, proper?

(Beams proudly) Sure, Ishaan had shot certainly one of my movies earlier. This one we did collectively, as father and son.

This 12 months, on the first Asian Artwork Movie Award in Macau, we received the Greatest Cinematography Award collectively.

I do not find out about world cinema, however I do not suppose there is a precedent in Indian cinema for a father-son duo profitable an award collectively.

Ishaan truly went to the US to check music, however he was quickly fascinated by the digicam I had given him, and on his return, he joined my movie unit.

(Laughs) We’re the Filmwallahs.

My spouse Nilanjana has been working with me since 1978, after I flagged off my first movie Maa Bhoomi; she does the costumes.

My daughter Anandi was additionally concerned with my movies, however now works independently in Mumbai, making advert movies. My son-in-law is a sound designer.

IMAGE: Goutam Ghose with Chitrangda Singh on the units of Parikrama. {Photograph}: Type courtesy Goutam Ghose

You will have received a number of Nationwide Awards. Of late, there was the occasional controversy over the nationwide honours. How do you react to that?

I keep in mind the Golden Lotus I received for Dakhal adjudged Greatest Characteristic Movie.

The chairman of the jury that 12 months was Ashok Kumar, and on the panel with him had been B R Chopra, Bhupen Hazarika and Salil Chaudhury.

We nonetheless have clever and illustrious folks on the jury, however may must evaluate the choice course of to make the awards engaging.

Aren’t movie festivals shedding their shine, more and more turning into promotional platforms and money-making endeavors?

I’ve attended many festivals after they had been a spot for movie lovers.

I used to be on the Cannes movie competition this 12 months and was inspired to see that they’ve managed to seamlessly mix artwork and commerce.

Venice can be attempting, however lots of the others have turn out to be extra business-oriented.

I used to be the founder chairperson of the Kolkata Worldwide Movie Pageant and in 2024, on the request of the West Bengal chief minister (Mamata Banerjee), I agreed to return because the chairperson of KIFF in its thirtieth 12 months.

I’ve agreed to return again because the chairperson this 12 months too and hope to display screen many extra attention-grabbing movies from the world over.