Director's choice

Award-winning Bollywood filmmaker Prakash Jha has produced and directed eight films and more than 25 documentaries.

Jha has also made two television features and three serials including Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne.

Acclaimed for his socially relevant films such as Gangaajal, Mrityudand, Damul and Parinati, he has also made mainstream films like Dil Kya Kare, Rahul and Hip Hip Hurray.

Jha's trademark remains thought-provoking quality films.

Damul won the Golden Lotus, the highest national award in India, for Best Feature Film in 1985.

Over the years, Jha has won half a dozen national awards and several international awards.

These include the Golden Lotus for the Best Non-Feature Film in 2003 for Sonal and the Best Feature Film on Social Issues in 2003 for Gangaajal.

Prakash Jha talks to Tabloid on location at a private club in Satara district in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

He is busy directing stars such as Ajay Devgan, Bipasha Basu, Ayub Khan and Khalid Emraan for his latest film Apaharan (Kidnapping).

It is set against the backdrop of a thriving kidnapping industry in Bihar in north India. It is also the story of kidnapping of the society itself.

Kidnapping has become a means of living. Thanks to unemployment and politics, it has become the bane of society. How it impacts society is the crux of my film.

My film is not about any incident but is a brutal comment on the system and what is happening today.

My film deals with the kidnapping of the moral fibre that sustains a civilisation.

It drives home the message that it is unfortunate that values and morality are held to ransom in a world that is fast losing its conscience.

I have created Salampur, a mini Bihar town, in Satara because nowhere else can I get a small town like this to shoot my film.

Moreover, my film is a low-budget film.

I intend to offer my film Apaharan to the people of Satara as my tribute to them.

I have taken actors looking at the requirement of every character such as Ajay Devgan, Bipasha Basu, Nana Patekar, Mukesh Tiwari, Akhilendra Mishra, Mohan Agashe and others.

I think I have made the right choice. All my actors are so involved in my film that at times they even ring me up in the middle of the night to discuss some scenes.

I believe in shooting my film in one go, one flow.

However, I am planning to have at least one song to use it for my film's promotion and publicity.

Music director Ram Sampath has composed the theme song for the film.

If Nana Patekar suggests an idea, I make it a point to listen for the benefit of the film.

I am an open book and am so impressed with Patekar that I have even asked him to go ahead and direct a film for me when he narrated a subject he had written.

After Prahaar, Patekar has not directed any film till date. He has always been an intense actor who throws himself into any project of which he is a part.

I think the kind of seriousness, which I feel, need not be the same, which you feel as a viewer.

If I see a film of mine after two years of its release, I feel like I should switch off the television.

With experience and maturity you outgrow your earlier phase, thinking and approach to filmmaking.

Both Nana and Ajai have different styles of approach as well as direction and I am sure I will be benefited if both make films for my company.

If only I had, I would have steered clear of any controversy by naming the character differently.

Now it is the case of once bitten, twice shy.

As far as Apaharan is concerned, I have made sure I have not named any character by the name of any person, who is a politician or related to any politician in Bihar.