“Filmistaan…the film on release. Cinema in its bountiful glory. Just saw it...films bind, they do not divide. Love is power,” Amitabh Bachchan tweeted last week.
The praise from one of Bollywood’s most powerful voices is another feather in the cap for Nitin Kakar, debutant director of the National Award winning yet unreleased Filmistaan.
The UTV release, out on Thursday, June 5, in the UAE, won best film at the 60th National Film Awards last year, the highest accolade in the Indian film industry, even before its commercial release. Yet, the shy director seemed like he’d rather be anywhere but at the press meet at Grand Hyatt Dubai, after a special screening last month.
“It’s prestigious to have won awards, especially the National Award,” Kakar said, barely audible as he spoke to tabloid!. “But at the end of the day, a director makes a film for the masses and it has taken us some time to actually bring it to them. Till now God has been really kind. So we can’t complain much about it. But, yes, we now wait for the actual litmus test.”
As Bachchan rightly said, Filmistaan is a story about how films bring people together, even through violence. Star-struck Sunny is a ham who is struggling to break into the film industry. The story begins when he’s mistakenly kidnapped by an armed group across the Indian border, while assisting on an American documentary in the Rajasthan desert. On realising their mistake, the jihadis lock him up in the house of an old man in a remote desert village in Pakistan, as collateral for their actual victims.
Here Sunny meets Aftab, the Bollywood-crazy elder son of the old man in whose house he is captive. Sunny and Aftab strike up a bromance which often gets them into trouble with Mehmood and Jawad, the two jihadis watching over Sunny.
For a change, it’s interesting to watch a cross-border film that does not have tunnel vision — looking at everything through violence and the pain it causes. E. Niwas tried it with his romantic Total Siyapaa earlier this year and now we have Filmistaan.
“It was a personal fight, yes, because we didn’t want to make something which was anti-Pakistan and pro-India, or, anti-India and pro-Pakistan,” said Kakar on the sensitive Indo-Pak political issue.
“We had just one thought in mind: you should respect your nation but that does not mean you can disrespect any other. My grandfather is from Lahore, Pakistan, so my roots are there. My experience has been one of a lot of love between the common people of these two countries. Even in a place like Dubai you cannot differentiate. They sit together, eat together, work together. There’s absolutely no animosity between them. Issues are mostly politically motivated because, then, patriotism is used as nothing but jingoism”.
Yet, somewhere the tension bristles and Kakar portrays it beautifully through another battle field: the cricket ground.
“That was just a point of view,” Kakar clarified. “If you see cricket, yes in some ways, it does create a divide among us, but films don’t and that’s exactly the point we want to make in that scene. You see Sunny and Mehmood fighting over who’s the best batsman? [Sachin] Tendulkar or [Shahid] Afridi? Or in the scene where Sunny screams ‘India, India’ when India wins the match and its consequences thereafter.”
That is probably about one of two or three scenes when you find the hall not roaring with laughter as Sunny takes slap after slap from Mehmood [Kumud Mishra].
Sharib Hashmi, who plays Sunny the over-actor, totally agrees that looks matter in acting.
“I got the part because of my looks so yes I can say looks matter,” laughed Hashmi. “I feel exhilarated. I never imagined that I will be able to do something like this in my life. Incidentally, just like Sunny, I started as an assistant director and a writer, secretly nurturing the desire to be an actor. That’s why Nitin approached me for the role.”
Always fascinated by the life in front of the camera, while being behind it, Hashmi, who’s been part of blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire and Yash Chopra’s swansong Jab Tak Hai Jaan, started out as a scriptwriter on TV before penning the dialogue of Filmistaan. Speaking of language in Indian cinema, Hashmi said he was glad to keep it clean.
“I can’t say for other writers but for me as a writer — even in Filmistaan — there’s no resorting to below the belt or crass humour and that’s how I’d like to keep it in the future. Inshallah,” said Hashmi. “This film, even though it has no known or glamorous faces or foreign locations — Jai Jai Katrina was a UTV promotional strategy — it’s as mainstream as it can get. People are getting entertained — you were there in the theatre – and that’s what mainstream cinema is about.”
After watching brainless blockbusters such Housefull 2 and Grand Masti, and flops such as Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 and Besharam in the last year by established artists, one can still hope that a small film such as Filmistaan can restore faith.
“Being a newcomer is definitely tough. One thing which is now diminishing in the world is honesty. If you are honest about your work — and I know this because I’m saying this after two years of hard work — it’s nice to be in this position because no one does a favour to you,” said Kakar. “Everyone comes to you — or doesn’t support you — because they see a vested interest in your project. With Shringar [Productions] we were really glad to have them. Then UTV came on board and I really like UTV because they have been one of those production houses which have continued to back a Shahid or a Ship of Theseus which might otherwise have not received a production.”
Box: Inaamulhaq on playing Aftab
Though an actor from a young age, Inaamulhaq says he didn’t aspire to play the lead character Sunny in Filmistaan.
“I couldn’t do it because I can’t mimic or impersonate actors. I was approached for Aftab because I acted in Firaaq and via facebook,” said Inaamulhaq.
Despite being in just three films (Firaaq, Agneepath and Filmistaan), Inaamulhaq’s theatrical appearances and writing can fill up pages. A screenwriter since 2007 for well-known TV series such as Karamchand season two and Comedy Circus, he’s penned dialogues for Amitabh Bachchan’s Buddha Hoga Tera Baap, and was a stage actor for the prestigious NSD (National School of Drama) which boasts names such as Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Neena Gupta, Anupam Kher and Irrfan Khan as its alumni, and IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association).
“My roots lie in acting. I belong to a small town Saharanpur and did street plays with IPTA,” explained Inaamulhaq. “But survival in a city like Mumbai as an actor is not easy. You are never sure of finding a job, you may get something now or nothing in the next 10 years. Call it talent or whatever I always had a knack with words so decided to bring that forth to run a household and took up good acting jobs as and when they came my way. Theatre was at one time like blood in my veins but I haven’t done theatre for almost a decade now. In fact I don’t even watch it — because it still has a very strong hold over me. Theatre, commercially, isn’t so strong in India yet that you can run a house on just that. Some people do but for a person like me, it’s a different scenario.”
Apart from being on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Inaamulhaq also has his own web page and feels it definitely makes a difference in an actor’s life.
“It does affect because news travels at the speed of light, reaching places in a matter of minutes. A huge political party got created because of a Facebook status. If the political scene can change, why not films or an individual’s career in the industry? And I do try and reach out through my website.”
Top box:
Sharib Hashmi: “While I was working as a scriptwriter on MTV and NDTV, I did a few odd acting jobs on the channels but never starred as a fully fledged actor until Slumdog Millionaire in 2008. That’s when I started pursuing acting as a full time profession. But my working with the TV channel UTV Bindaas didn’t help getting them on board because UTV Spotboy is about motion pictures.”
