Short films at Trans Film Festival

Sunday 5 May, was the last day of "Divergenti 2013", the international film festival in Bologna (Italy) on transgender themes. It was also the day of short films.

I was fortunate that on each day of the festival, I was able to watch/attend at least one film or event, though I missed two films that I would have really loved to see - Noor (France & Pakistan, 2012) and Facing mirrors (Iran, 2011). This festival has been an intensive full immersion course into transgender issues for me.

Coming to the short films in the festival, there were five of them on 5 May. I love the short film format and wish that there were more of these films. Here are my impressions about the five short films shown in the festival:

Lili longed to feel her insides
(USA, 2011, 5 min., directors - Adelaide Windsome and Wren Warner)

If you wish, you can watch this film on the youtube video.
Apart from expressing the angst of Lili Elbe, the first person who was identified as transexual in USA and who went through the transition surgery, I am not so sure if I have understood all the things that this puppet-based film wanted to communicate. It shows the challenges and anguish of Lili through a puppet and a background song.

In the film, I was struck by the shot of a butterfly (or was it a crab?), pierced by a stick, fluttering and writhing, trying to get away. However, I am not so sure about the symbolism of the hole on the Lili-puppet's tummy, and pulling out of her body parts, or the stick fixed in her nose.

Perhaps, this film is not about any rational understanding, but it is more about communicating the emotional state and anguish of Lili's experience? Thus, like abstract art, it is not important to ask for meanings, but rather we should focus on the feelings evoked by the images and the song? If you watch this film, I would love to hear about your impressions about this film.

Burmese butterfly
(Myanmar, 2011, 12 min., director Hnin Ei Hlaing)

This is the first film of director Hnin Ei Hlaing from Yangon Film School. The film tells the story of Phyo Lay, born as a boy named Kew, who from her early childhood, felt that she was a girl. She lives with her grandmother in Yangon and calls her "mother". Her grandmother initially tried to control her and to make her behave like a boy, but Phyo Lay's feelings were too strong to be chained.

Duped by a man proposing a job in a bar in Thailand, Phyo finds herself stranded in a border town. She finds work in a bar in a small town of Myanmar and then finally goes to Thailand, to work in a factory. Finally back in Yangon because "I missed my mother", Phyo now works in a beauty parlour, is open about being a transexual and her grandmother has finally accepted her for who she is.

In the last scene of the film Phyo says, "Next time, I want to be born as a girl. There is just too much prejudice against us."

It is a simple straight forward film with some sepia coloured flashback scenes shot with actors to illustrate significant moments in Phyo's childhood. It provides a glimpse into the transgender and queer community of Myanmar. It also tells a universal story common to transexual persons all over the world.

Undress me
(Original title Ta Av Mig, Sweden 2013, 15 min., director Victor Lindgren)

Swedish film "Undress me" is about a MtF transexual girl called Mikaela (Jana Bringlöv Ekspong) and her encounter with a guy (Björn Elgerd) in a pub (check the trailor on Youtube).

The guy is attracted towards her and also a little puzzled. He says, "I have never met a girl who is taller than me and has a voice deeper than me".

The girl explains that she is transexual. The guy is shocked but also a little curious. He goes to her house and wants to see her body. She wants him to reciprocate, by showing his body.

The film shows the curiosity about the bodies and genitals of transgender persons and at the same time, their difficulties in being seen as persons with feelings and desires. For example, in the film, Mikaela and the guy, they never kiss.

The guy is attracted and at the same time, afraid. And there is a feeling of underlying tension in the film related to the insecurities of masculinity, as if violence can erupt suddenly. It is not because the guy is particularly rude or nasty, but I think that in general our societies are less tolerant of diversity and being rude or not behaving properly with persons who are "different" is seen as "normal".

I liked a lot this film.

Il Mio Genere - My gender
(Italy, 2012, directors Marta Cioncoloni & Cesare Bonifazi Martinozzi, 20 min.)

This film tells the story of Emanuele or Lele, born a girl and his journey to become a FtM man. He explains very eloquently about his growing up years and the slow understanding about his own desires linked to different events in his life that make him decide on the transition.

"The girl that I was so many years, sometimes she still wants to come out and express herself. I accept those moments with serenity, because she is also part of my history and part of me", he explains. Thus, his FtM transition is a shift along a spectrum that can range from points situated somewhere between the extremes of masculinity and feminility, but that continues to have elements of both.

The film also has interviews with a psychologist working in a "Transexual advisory centre" and with a surgeon who has experience in transition-related surgery. I think that for persons who know little about transexual issues and for young persons going through a crisis of identity, this can be a good educational-informational film.

It sounds a little jarring to hear the doctor refer to transexual persons as "patients", as if they are sick (though he is talking about his role as a doctor so perhaps the use of word "patient" is understandable). But then medicalization of all issues related to alternate sexualities is a common issue for different groups of persons, and not just for transexual persons.

These educational/informational parts of the film are very verbal and do not use any images or models to explain anything. However, before the screening one of the directors, Martinozzi, had explained that this is their first film, made without any kind of external funding, so it is easy to understand its limits.

You can watch the full film in the Youtube video, though it is in Italian and does not have subtitles.

La Victoria de Ursula - Ursula's Victory
Spain 2011, directors Julio Marti & Nacho Ruipérez, 16 min.

This film is a little jewel, complete with gothic atmospheres, and strange looking characters, who give an idea of hidden mysteries and conspiracies. In some ways, the film is like a Spanish version of Addams family. The film starts with a stormy night and a young girl dressed in red raincoat with a hood, carrying a suitcase, walking through a lush foliage, who breaks the chains of a cemetery and then starts digging at a grave. The secret of her actions is revealed at the end, with a well-constructed surprize.

You can watch the full film in the Youtube video - it is in Spanish with English subtitles.

The film has an eloquent message about people's fear of society and thus how persons who do not fit with the society's norms, such as transexual persons, are hidden and mutilated to keep up the appearances.

Among the short films of "Divergenti 2013", I liked this film most.

Conclusions

I think that the understanding that comes from a "story" is completely different from the understanding that comes from someone explaining something. Both kinds of understandings can be important.

However, if I have to judge a film, I would like to feel it in a cinematic language - that means, a communication through images and words, and not some kind of lecture. That is why I liked "Ursula's victory" most because of the way it uses the cinematic language and the way it is able to provide an emotional connect to the persons in its story.

Actually the English translation of the film's title "La Victoria de Ursula" takes away an important aspect of film's meaning. The film is about victory of Ursula, who manages to respect the dignity of her father. At the same time, the title of the film can be seen as change of the name "Victor" into "Victoria" on the tombstone.

Some documentaries rely almost completely on words - that is, people speaking and explaining. Probably these can work equally well as radio programmes. I personally feel that explaining everything and not letting the audience discover their own meanings, is boring and is less effective in terms of communication.

Thus, in the short films, for me the element of how much is not said/explained is really important because, then it can become like a broken tooth and your mind constantly goes back to it, trying to decipher its meanings. In that sense, I think that "Undress me" was the strongest short film in the festival, because it does not give any kind of explicit message, it does not give any clear judgement and in the end, it makes you question yourself. Four days after watching it, I still find myself occasionally thinking about it. Thus while "Ursula's victory" had an immediate strong impact, in the long run, "Undress me" is more effective.

Internet gives you the option of watching three of these films, so why don't you take a look at them and make your own opinions? I would love to hear about your opinions.

***
Regarding the Trans film festival of Bologna (2013), I have already written two more reviews - "Nessuno è perfetto" (Nobody is perfect) about MtF transexual persons and "Sexing the Transman" about FtM transexual persons.

***

Sexing the Transman - the path to manhood

"Sexing the Transman" is a 2011 documentary film on FemaleToMale (FtM) transexual persons by Buck Angel. I saw this film in "Divergenti 2013", the International Trans Film Festival in Bologna (Italy) organized by Movimento Identità Transessuale (MIT - Italian Transexual Identity Movement) in the first week of May.

I had never really thought about FtM transexual persons before. More than a decade ago, during a research on sexuality and disability, I had read something about difficulties of surgical construction of penis in the FtM persons compared to the relative ease of constructing a vagina in MtF transexual persons, but somehow, after finishing my research I had never really thought about it.

As general public, we are much more aware of the Male-to-Female (MtF) transexual persons, especially in terms of the stereotypes of flamboyant and exotic personalities that are often used as caricatures to elicit laughs or as villains and perverted personalities in films and mainstream media. I do not remember seeing or reading about any FtM character in any film or book in any language. There have been a few films where women dress as a man (for example, Albert Nobbs, where Glenn Close dresses as a man in the 19th century Ireland to find a job and Yentl, where Barbara Streisand dresses as a man to get Jewish religious education), but in those films, the women do not really wish to be a man, they are only forced by circumstances to cross-dress.

If someone asks you to imagine and describe a FtM transexual person, that is someone who was born as a girl and who later became a boy or a man, what kind of person will you think of? If someone had asked me this question before I had seen "Sexing the Transman", I think I would have thought of femminine looking men. Now take a look at Buck Angel, who is the scriptwriter, producer and director of "Sexing the Transman", and also an actor in some adult XXX films, and ask yourself if he fits in with your ideas of a FtM person?

However, thinking that all FtM transexual persons are like Buck Angel, would be equally wrong. Like all human beings, FtM persons also come in all shapes and sizes. A trailor of the film on Youtube can give you a glimpse into some of them.

The Film

"Sexing the Transman" takes you into the largely unknown world of FtM transexual persons in north America through some in-depth interviews. People talk about their childhoods, their understanding of how they felt different, their alienation from their bodies, their decisions to make a transition to a male persona, the effects of taking male hormone (testosterone), the surgeries to get rid of their breasts, and most of all, the liberating effects of the transition on their lives.

The film gave me the feeling of being in a locker room full of horney adolescent guys. The guys in the film constantly talk of dicks, jacking off and fucking. The only missing words in their vocabulary are related to female genitals.

Almost all the persons in the film talked about their feelings of being imprisoned in their bodies and their distaste (or refusal) towards their femminine bodies and genitals before the transition. In the pre-transition phase, some of them had been through the traditional female roles with their boyfriends, though they felt that something was missing. They describe taking testosterone as suddenly feeling alive for the first time in their lives. It is like a second adolescence, it makes them feel horney and sexually excited all the time.

Almost all the persons in the film have had some kind of surgical operation for the removal of their breasts. They say that breasts were non-sexual for them. After the operation and hormones, most of them feel an increased sensitivity of their nipples and understand the pleasure that comes from touching of those nipples. In a moving testimony, one of the guy explained the years of binding his breasts and covering himself with layers of clothes to hide them, and his joy in taking off his shirt in public after his breast removal operation - the joy of feeling naked skin.

Only one guy in the film has had surgical operation to get a penis. All the remaining persons seem happy with their slightly overgrown clitoris, treating them as penises. At the same time, those who do not go through the operation for the construction of a penis, they have their vaginas. Many of them say that after the transition, they feel more accepting towards their vaginas and some of them agree that they also like being penetrated. Compared to non-trans guys, the FtM guys in this film seem very much relaxed about their bodies, open to experimenting different flavours of pleasure.

All of them agree that transition has changed their lives completely. Some of them are in relationships, some have sex with other FtM guys like themselves, some like sex with men, some others like it with women. These discussions clarify the differences between their gender preference and their sexual orientation. In terms of gender they all feel male. In terms of sexual orientation, they are very different - some of them are heterosexual (they like women), some are gay (they like other men or FtM men) and some like to experiment with men, women and FtM guys.

There are two women in the film, who talk about their sexual relationships with the FtM guys. One of them, Margaret Choo, is much more open to experimenting the different male and female roles in the sex with lesbians and with FtM guys. The other, Selene, looks at FtM guys exclusively as "male" and does not want to deal with the female parts of their bodies.

The film has a few explicit sex scenes, showing FtM guys having sex or showing their genitals and jacking off.

Comments

Some of the initial explicit sex scenes embarrassed me, especially the scenes of the couples (Sean and Dan, Buck and Fallen). I felt that the explicit sex scenes detracted from the film. If I was watching this film at home, probably I would have switched it off at that point. Fortunately I was not at home, but in a cinema hall and so I could not switch it off. After watching the full film, looking back, I feel that without those scenes, I would not have understood half as much. Or that I would have understood what it means to be a FtM guy only in theoretical/rational terms and not in emotional terms.

The film goes straight to the point and shows you how does it feel to be a FtM guy. As men, we are so much preoccupied about the length, width and the erection of our dicks, and the duration of our "performances". FtM world liberates you from such anxieties - you can still be a guy and have enormous pleasure and fun with sex even if you don't have any dick.

FtM world has its own jargon and the film touches on some of them. For example, "transition" is the process of changing from female to male persona, "top surgery" is breast surgery, "stone" is about ignoring your vagina during the sex, "Cis" is a person who was born as a male, and "strap-ups" are artificial penises that can be strapped up. Vaginas can be "lower half" or "the hole".

I have already written about the other film, "Nessuno è perfetto" (No one is perfect), that dealt with MtF transexual persons. These two films are completely different - "Nessuno è Perfetto" is melancholic and more about challenges, difficulties, emotions, love and relationships; while "Sexing the Transman" is more joyful and it focuses on liberation, having sex and fun. The two films give a completely different glimpses of the two transexual worlds, though both may be partial glimpses!

I feel that "Sexing .." could have benefited by having some older FtM persons, who had the transition some decades ago and who could have looked back at longer periods to share their experiences and challenges.

I wish that more people will see this film to get an understanding about an area that is so little known. It would make you look at male and female roles in more open ways, and in the process, understand and enjoy your own sexuality in more fulfilling ways.

Note: More information including trailors and an adult XXX version of this film are available on the Buck Angel's Sexing the Transman website.

***
I was thinking that transitioning from male to female or from female to male, can pose some specific challenges. The answers to those challenges may not be easy in the present system. Here are three examples of these challenges:

Alessandra, one of my friends in Bologna, was born a male and had married. Only after marriage, she understood her desire to be a woman and went through a surgical operation. After the operation, she asked to be recognized as a woman. However, after legal recognition, her marriage has been annulled, because Italian law does not recognize marriage between persons of same sex. Alessandra has still the same body and is the same person who had married to a woman, she still loves that woman and they still live together, but because she had an operation and she took some hormones, her marriage is no longer valid.

Another Alessandra, Mr. D'Agostino, writer of an Italian book about FtM guys called "Sesso mutante - i transgender si raccontano" (Changing sex - the transgenders tell their stories), decided to become a man five years ago. He had some surgery and took hormones. However, he does not want to get his uterus removed. On the other hand, according to the Italian law, to be recognized legally as a man he must get his uterus removed. Thus, inspite of his manly body, beard and deep voice, he still has a female name and on his documents he is a woman, that create lot of difficulties in the daily life.

In the film Trans-America, the MtF woman is with her son whom she had fathered before her transition. Yet, because she is a woman, she can't be a "father" of her son, and is obviously not his mother. The film does not pose this as a legal question, but more a question of relationship between a son and his father.

All these examples point to the way the male and female gender roles are closely linked in our societies to being father and mother in a family. Transitions confuse these clear boundaries, and create paradoxes.

***

International Trans Film Festival 2013

The 6th International Trans Film Festival of Bologna, called "Divergenti 2013" (Divergent or going in different directions) started on 2 May 2013. The festival is organized by MIT - Movimento Identità Transessuale (Transexual Identity Movement) of Bologna (Italy) and many other partner organisations such as "Some prefer cake" and "Cassero - Bologna Gay Lesbian centre". This year the festival is focusing on the way media looks at and talks about transexual persons and related issues.

This year, I am planning to attend at least part of the festival, including a participation in a workshop on "Trans* and Media".

Though I did participate in the past in some GLBTI events and once I had interviewed Alessandra Bernaroli, who is fighting for her right to marriage, I have to confess my substantial ignorance about transexual issues. Thus, I am hoping to learn more about these issues from this festival.

MIT was initated in 1979 with the aim of fighting for "right to sex change" and is the first association of transexual persons in Italy. The law on sex change (Law 164) was approved by Italian parliament on 14 April 1982.

Porpora Marcasciano, president of MIT and an activist for human rights, sociologist, researcher and writer, opened the festival. In her speech, she pointed out the widespread stigma and prejudice surrounding transexuals. At the same time, she felt that the stories of transexuals are usually told by others, non-transexuals, so that one of the aims of the festival is to give voice to transexual persons themselves.

An Italian documentary film, "Nessuno è Perfetto" was the opening film of the festival.

Nessuno è Perfetto
(No one is perfect, 2013, Italy, 82 minutes)

The film is produced by Ar.Pa. films, is directed by Fabiomassimo Lozzi and its screenplay is by Fabiomassimo Lozzi & Antonio Veneziani.

The film focuses on the worlds of Male-to-Female (MtF) transexuals, through interviews with a group of transexual women who were born as male. The different stories are mixed together and do not follow a chronological order, thus the film feels like a chorus of different voices around the central theme of transexual women.

The different voices about lived experiences of persons alternate with the poetry of Antonio Veneziani, an Italian poet, who writes about love, relationships, pain, abbandonment, identity, gender ... Though the trailor of "Nessuno è perfetto" does not have English subtitles, still you can take a look at it to get a feel about the film.

I think that among the transexual persons, the men who desire or feel to be a woman, are better known to general public, since there have been some important films around them. For me, the most important work in this sense is the Spanish film "All about my mother" (Pedro Almodovar, 1999), where I had loved Agrado as the warm hearted transexual prostitute.

Another important film about MtF transexual persons is "Trans America" (Duncan Tucker, 2005). This film touched on the complexity and challenges of the transition process including issues regarding surgical operations in biological males to become a woman and the complicated relationship of a transexual woman with her teenage son, she had fathered in her male days. (Check its trailor on Youtube)

Thus, Lozzi's film was not my first experience about the world of transexual women. However, still the film surprized me because it gave a glimpse of the absolute diversity of experiences and meanings of being a transexual woman. It made me realize that to be a "transexual woman" is not one stereotype experience, but rather each individual is different. Flamboyant and exotically dressed trans-women, popularly known as drag-queens, catch public attention and make us think that all trans-women are like that. Lozzi's film makes you understand that this is far from true, by presenting a palette of very different persons, none of whom fits in the "flamboyant and exotic drag-queen" group.

Marcello seems more male than female. He dresses as a male and wishes to be known by a male name. He shares his the pain of his first traumatic sex experience. He has not taken female hormones like estrogen, has no female-breasts and not been operated. He is a woman, emotionally and psychologically rather than physically.

Daniela has been a wife for fifteen years. She talks about her operation in London because that operation gave "more depth" to her new genitals. The operation allowed her to become a woman legally and have a female name. Her mother in law did not even realize that she is transexual and keeps on hoping for a grandchild. Only when Daniela was close to her separation from her husband, she talked to her mother-in-law about her transexuality. Her mother-in-law's reaction, "..but my son's body is normal, I know it because I bathed him as a child" gives a glimpse into common misconceptions and lack of understanding about transexuality in general public.

Georgina talks about her controlling husband, and her fight to be her own person and to make her own choices. She also thinks that a "normal" family is made of a man, a woman and their children and thus does not think that couples with a transexual person have a right to marry.

Leila, an artist from Brazil, talks about her early exclusion because "she was not Italian", and also of the strong influence of church.

Andrea is a fish-seller and also a handicrafts person, talks of her initially difficulties and the social stigma. She also talks of her intense relationship for four years with a person who had lot of problems and how their relationship changed from passion to "maternal care". "It is heterosexual men, persons who like women, who get attracted to trans-women", Andrea says smiling, "but so many of them want me my dick, they want me to be the active partner."

Another story is that of Venecio, a pioneering trans-woman who was some kind of famous artist. Her part of story in the film is shown through a visit to a museum dedicated to her costumes.

Comments

The persons in the film talk of their initial difficulties, their first sex experiences, their love lives, their long relationships, their hormone therapies and operations, their struggles to be "normal" in a society that does not accept them easily.

On the whole, the film is sad and melancholic, focusing on difficulties, loneliness, challenges of finding love and companionship, of being used just for sex. Veneziani's poems that connect different parts of the stories, are also melancholic. The only happy parts of the film are where Andrea comes on screen.

I could understand from the film that the transition, the process of changing from a man to a woman, is an evergoing process, it does not conclude just because a person has been operated and has female genitals or takes hormones. Rather transition is a lifelong process of a new gender identity that must be forged constantly, fighting or dealing with external and internalized gender roles, stereotypes and expectations.

The film focuses on persons who have lived through tougher and more closed times of 1970s and 1980s when the issues of transexuality were just coming out and the battles for their human rights were just begining. They all feel that today things are easier and their is much more visibility, so it is easier for persons to transition and make their choices. I feel that the film could have gained by having one or two more contemporary stories of younger persons, who have different kind of experiences.

The film has many shots of Veneziani getting out of and getting back into a house, where he has to squeeze through a half-open door. I am not sure if it has some symbolic meaning (I didn't get the meaning) and why it is repeated so often. The parts about Veneziani, like the shots showing he is writing notes, seem like intellectual/literary posturing.

Globally I liked this film and I think it succeeds in giving you an idea of diversity of transexual women and their lives and experiences, especially in the above-fifty age group.

***

The Amitabh encounter

"My father was among the first persons in Allahabad to go against the caste system that was prevailing at that time and is still prevalent in India. He married into a sikh family - my mother was a sikh. He often said that he would like his children and grandchildren to marry persons from different parts of our country. I married a bengali, my brother married a sindhi, my son married a tulu from south India and my daughter is married in a punjabi family."

He clearly liked to talk. He gave long answers to each question of the Italian journalists, explaining everything at great length, sometimes repeating it, to make sure that they understood.

May be it was because he is considerate and knows that in the West, mainstream understanding and knowledge about India are fairly limited. Or may be, he feels that the journalists who come to film related press conferences are not very intelligent, because of his experiences with the press in India, that is forever obsessed with mundane details of the stars' lives? Or, may be it was because he also loves his own baritone voice that can weave magic on the screen?

The attention of mainstream Italian media about India used to be limited to issues like poverty, Sonia Gandhi, spirituality, yoga and Mahatma Gandhi. Other Indian news appeared in Italian news channels, when there were some kind of a disasters or riots. Only over the past decade there have been new additions to these themes, as there are stories of India as an emerging superpower. Increasingly Italian businesses have relocated outside western Europe and Bangalore is one of the symbols for the news stories on "emerging countries are going to take over the world" hype.

We were in one of the meeting rooms of Savoy hotel in Florence, Italy. Selvaggia Velo, the organiser of the River to River film festival had introduced him as "One of the most important icons of Indian cinema, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan."

I was not expecting to see many Italian journalists at the press conference, because Bollywood is still a very niche phenomenon in Italy. To my surprize, the room was almost full with journalists and photographers, representing some of the major Italian newspapers.

Someone had asked him about the future direction of Bollywood films - if they would continue to be formula-driven masala films or there will more of intelligent sensible kind of cinema?

Amitabh started his answer with the often repeated explanation about poor persons' need for a fantasy world to get away from the squallor of their real lives. "Elementary my dear Watson, it is entertaiment, entertainment, entertainment", as Sherlock Holmes would have said.

"In the west there was recognition for the artistic kind of Indian films, while western audience were cynical and even critical about other kind of Indian films because they felt that it was too fantasized and unreal. We have not changed so much, we continue to make both kinds of films, but in the west today perceptions have changed and there is greater recognition of our popular cinema."

"May be today the two kinds of cinemas can be looked at together. After the opening of Indian economy in early 1990s, there is more affluence and a bigger middle class in India. This inlcudes about 350 million persons, who are more educated and can appreciate more intelligent cinema. If they don't like something, they can be very critical", he had added.

Another related question was about the reasons of popularity of Indian cinema in many different parts of the world including in north Africa, middle east and in countries of former Soviet Union.

"Many years ago, I had asked this same question to a moscovite - what do you find in the Indian films? He had told me that it was because when he came out of the cinema hall after an Indian film, he had a smile on his lips and a dried tear on his cheek."

I was never a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan, in the sense that I never went to see a film just because he was in it. I had not seen his first film, "Saat Hindustani", when it had come out. But I remember his small role in Sunil Dutt's "Reshma aur Shera", where he was a gangly awkward young man, very un-hero like deaf and mute guy, who kills newly married Rakhi's husband and sparks off the family feud. It had me feeling a little embarassed as well as a little proud, because I could identify with him. It was the time when I was acutely aware of my thin body, long neck and awkward limbs.

However, I had liked Amitabh in Hrishikesh Mukherjee films like "Anand", where he had played serious middle class characters. But I was more of a Rajesh Khanna fan at that time.

The moment I first saw him when he entered the press-conference room at Savoy, my first thought was about "Anand". "Wow, Babu moshai!", I had said to myself. Immediately after, my second thought was that he was so very thin, almost gaunt and his face showed that he is no stranger to pain and suffering.

Ever since I had known that he was coming to Florence, I had started worrying about the questions I could pose to him. After a lot of thought I had decided that I would have focused about his days in Allahabad and about the literary world of his father. I remembered his joint interviews with Jaya Bhaduri that were published in the Hindi magazine Dharamyug in the 1970s. Those interviews were done by Pushpa Bharati. I wanted to know about those parts of his life.

Amitabh Bachchan is what is called a character actor in Hindi cinema, that means actors who are no longer the main heroes of a film. These actors may play the elder brother or the father or the uncle or friend or the villain. Most of the heroes, when their films stop being successful at the boxoffice, disappear from cinema screens and public memory. Increasingly after the proliferation of private TV channels since the 1990s, they may find work on the TV, hosting shows or acting in TV serials. However a few of them become respected character actors, some times getting important roles in films or even films that revolve around them.

Amitabh had also gone through his days of oblivion after a number of commercially unsuccessful films in late 1980s and then made his come back through a very popular TV show in late 1990s, and then the popularity of his TV show brought him back to the films as a respected character artist.

There have been a number of character actors who had been equally respected in Hindi cinema including Ashok Kumar, Balraj Sahni, Motilal and Pran. Films were made around them. However, Amitabh Bachchan today is considered a bigger icon of Bollywood, probably because of its greater reach in the world due to NRIs and probably because of the greater economic might of Bollywood.

Sitting in Amitabh's press conference, I had suddenly remembered a meeting with Ashok Kumar in Mohan studios in Bombay in 1975. Ashok Kumar was a hero in 1930s-1950s, and during 1960s had shifted to the character roles. My father had been a fan of the "hero Ashok Kumar", for me he was an "old man". At that time, I had identified with Amitabh. To see him in Florence and to think of him as "old", was a reminder of my own white hairs.

I had often wondered about his film on Dharamveer Bharati's novel, "Gunahon ka Devtaa". I remembered seeing some stills of this film that was titled, "Ek tha Chander, ek thi Sudha". The novel was based in Civil Lines in Allahabad where Amitabh was born and had grown up. I had loved that book and I had dreamed of watching that film. Due to some problems, that film was never completed or released. After almost 40 years, I still remember it and I would have loved to talk to him about it.

There were other reasons for my self-identification with Amitabh. My father's family also came from Allahabad. My parents, also a UP Kayasth and a punjabi like his parents, had known his father. I would like to think that we had also shared the world of Hindi literature in our growing up years.

In those Allahabad days, what was the relationship of his father with other literary figures like Mahadevi, Nirala and Dinakar? How did he feel when he walked near that patch of grass where Chandrashekhar Azad was shot down? Did he used to go to Anand Bhawan to play with young Rajiv Gandhi? What he did feel about Nehru? Can he see the punjabi part from his mother's side in his personality? How is that punjabi side different from the UP side?

There were so many questions I would have liked to ask him, but in the press conference there was no time for them.

"My father was a poet, an icon of literature in India", Amitabh had said proudly, talking about his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan many times during the press conference in Florence, "When he was old, every evening he watched one of my films. One day I asked him, what is it in these films that you find so attractive? He said that those films provide poetic justice in three hours, something that does not happen in real life."


"I would like to be treated as a very normal human being, someone who can make errors and mistakes like everyone else. I can't be perfect all the time, but the moment you become a celebrity, everyone expects you to be perfect. If there is any kind of political or moral situation, people want to know my opinion about it, though I may not be qualified to talk about it. And the moment you respond, you are taking sides and there will always be a reaction to everything you do. Why does every body presume that just because you are a celebrity, you are also intelligent to answer all kinds of questions?" Amitabh had said during the press conference.

He was wearing a turtle neck black sweater with a scarf around his neck, and his hair combed and put in place carefully. His hair were clearly dyed but not in the usual jet black dye chosen commonly by men in India. Rather they had shades of dark and light maroon with some grey in it.

Later that evening, when he had entered Odeon cinema, venue of the inauguration of the film festival, crowds had gone berserk, surrounding him, touching him, clapping and whistling for a long time. A group of young Indians and Italians had secretely prepared a flashmob that had burst into a medley of songs and dances inspired from the famous Bachchan films.

Like all his roles in the films, that evening he had played the role of the superstar from India, taking the bows on the stage in a shiney pearly black coat.


As fans and as interviewers, how do we relate to persons we idealize? Is our idealizing, a kind of self-identification?

During the press conference, everything Amitabh said had to be translated into Italian. Thus there were pauses when Manuela, the translator spoke and Amitabh sat there listening. During those gaps, I was looking at his face to see if I could sense his thoughts. Most of the time, he seemed attentive towards the translator and the persons sititng in the room. Only occasionally I thought that there were fleeting glimpses of a brooding man, his eyes serious, as he observed everything around.

When I was young, I used to daydream about being a famous film star. Perhaps most young people had those kinds of daydreams. Looking at Amitabh that day at the press conference, suddenly I felt happy that I was not Amitabh Bachchan.

After the press conference, I wanted to go out in the square, walk around, eat an ice-cream. When you are Amitabh Bachchan you can't do so many things that I take for granted. People asking questions in press conferences is bad enough. I would rather sit on the side asking questions rather than answering questions! People pointing at me and wishing to talk to me all the time, would be a real nightmare. Being famous is a difficult burden to carry.

PS: In Florence someone had asked me if I read Mr. Bachchan's blog and I had to shamefully admit that I had never looked at it. I did look at it after the press conference. He is very prolific and regular at his blog and probably I can find all the answers to my questions on his blog!

***

Waiting for Bachchan ji

"We are going to have a big Bollywood star", Selvaggia Velo had announced almost one month ago and a guessing game had started.

From Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan to Rishi Kapoor, so many different names were proposed by the Italian and Indian Bollywood fans, all trying to guess the name of the "big Bollywood star" coming to Florence (Italy) in December 2012.

The idea of having a big shot actor or actress coming to the River to River film festival in Florence was enticing and at the same time, a little daunting for me.

I thought that with someone like Aamir Khan or Shah Rukh, there will be hordes of screaming Bollywood fans every where they will go, and that would take away the attention from the film makers presenting their documentary films in the festival.

In 2010, I had intereviewed Rahul Bose, Onir and Aparna sen in the festival. I had talked to Onir and Aparna in a coffee bar and Rahul in a small office. But I can't imagine myself sitting down in a coffee bar and chatting with Aamir or Shah Rukh, surrounded by delirious fans.

Finally on 11th, Selvaggia Velo, director of the River to River film festival, held a press conference and announced that the guest of honour this year is going to be Amitabh Bachchan. Three of his films - Sholay, Deewar and Black will be shown in the festival.

I am a little relieved by the announcement. I am sure that the serious Italian Bollywood fans will be there in Florence to look for Bachchan, and more Indian-Pakistani-Bangladeshi people will come to the festival to see him in person, but hopefully we won't have many of the delirious young fans milling around, looking for him to mob him and making it a big security issue. At least I hope so!

So I am looking forward to seeing Bachchan ji, though there was a period when I didn't like some of his films, like the period when he was doing films like Mard and Coolie.

I had loved his Hrikesh Mukherjee films - from Anand to Chupke Chupke, Mili, Abhiman, Namakharam and Aalap. I had also liked his initial films such as Zanzeer and Deewar, that had made him more popular among the masses. Then his popularity had grown too big, imprisoning him in certain kinds of roles, and I had stopped watching his films. I like his second innings as the elderly actor much more, that started in late nineties and that allows him to experiment much more as an actor. Films like Cheeni kum, Black and Paa.

I am not sure if I will get the chance to interview him, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

The introduction to Amitabh Bachchan in the Italian press kit presents him as an icon of Indian cinema and also as the father-in-law of Aishwarya Rai. Though a couple of Amitabh's films (Cheeni kum and Kabhi Alvida na kehna) have been shown on national TV in Italy some years ago, he is virtually unknown among Italian public. On the other hand, Aishwarya Rai with a couple of mainstream Hollywood and British films is slightly better known in Italy.

I feet that his introduction should have also mentioned Jaya Bhaduri Bachchan, one of the best Indian actresses of that generation. I have been told that Jaya will be accompanying her husband for the festival. This news is much more exciting for me. I have always been her fan and I think that I have seen all her films, from Guddi, Uphaar, Koshish and Piya ka Ghar, right down to Hazaar chourasi ki maa.

Her films deserve a festival on their own right. So I am glad that among the films selected for the festival, there is Sholay, that is also Jaya's film. Italian public has also seen her in "Laga chunri mein daag", when it was shown on national TV a couple of years ago during the summer Bollywood festival called "Amore con .. turbante". I hope that I can interview her as well, and I am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed for this!

I am also looking forward to watching documentaries in the River to River festival, the only festival in the world dedicated entirely to Indian films (though over past few years, an occasional film from other Asian countries also made it in the programme). It is held in a beautiful, old and historical cinema hall in the centre of Florence, Odeon cinema.

This year the festival is going to be from 7 to 13th December. So if you are around in Italy in that period, write down the dates in your agenda. A special treat this time will be the screening of the first Indian film ever made, Raja Harishchandra made in 1913, whose print has been restored recently.

***
Suppose you have to choose one favourite film in which Amitabh and Jaya were together, which film would you choose?

They did many films together, including - Ek nazar, Bansi aur Birju, Abhimaan, Chupke Chupke, Mili, Sholay, Zanzeer, Silsila and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (have I forgotten any? - I remember that in 1970s they were doing "Ek tha Chander, ek thi Sudha" based on Dharamveer Bharti's famous book Gunahon ka Devtaa, but I don't think that it was ever completed and released).

From all these films, my personal favourite would be Abhimaan, followed by Chupke Chupke. Abhimaan was emotional and intense, while Chupke Chupke was light and frothy, so the two films were very different from each other and were equally lovable. Both films had marvellous music by S. D. Burman. However, for this classification, personally I would prefer Abhimaan, because in Chupke Chupke, the emphasis was on Dharmendra-Sharmila Tagore pair and Amitabh-Jaya had a more limited role.

If you have to choose one favourite Amitabh-Jaya film, which one would you choose?

***

Dance, Theater & Public Events, Best of 2011 Pics

Colours, costumes and crowds make for great photography possibilities. I especially like to click pictures with stage lights and whirling movements of dances. 2011 gave different opportunities for clicking pictures of dances, theater and big public events. The three most important events were - international youth festival in Delhi, the Venice carnival and the Par Tot summer festival of Bologna.

So here is my selection of some of my favourite images from 2011.

(1) Street theater, Brazil: The first image is of street theater in Belem, the capital of Parà state in Brazil. We had just reached Belem that day, and Luis Agusto, our host in Belem had taken us to the old port for dinner. Finding the performance of street theater had been a pleasant surprize.

(2) Folkdancers from Karnataka: The second image is of folkdancers from Karnataka. I had just arrived in Bangalore and on my way from the airport to the hotel, I had seen the group of dancers from the taxi. So I had quickly checked in, left the luggage in my room and quickly ran back to the place where I had seen the dancers. It was the inauguration of all India kabaddi championships.

(3) Blind dancers and the dance of lights: The next image is again from Bangalore (India). A group of blind students from Sri Raman Maharishi blind Academy had come to dance. Their bharatnatyam with candles was breath-taking.

(4) International Youth Festival of Delhi: The next three images are from the International Youth Festival in Delhi. The groups are - odissi dancers students of Harekrishna Behera, Abhimanyu dance drama by Mahendra Rawat and group, and students of Sadhu Vaswani International school doing kathak dance.

(7) Venice Carnival: The next four images are from carnival in Venice. It was a wonderful experience with incredible masks and costumes. From the hundreds of pictures I had clicked that day, it is difficult to select a few for showing here.

(11) Bologna Carnival: The next image is from Bologna carnival. It was more of an event for children with some colourful floats.

(12) Readings on the River festival: As part of the summer festival, there were some events along the river with theater, music and readings from different writers. I liked the short play about homeless persons enacted under the bridge where often homeless emigrants sleep.

(13) American Astronauts: Another public event in Bologna was the visit of some American astronauts, who held a public meeting in the beautiful Sala Borsa building of the central library. I had goneto the library to return some books and was surprized by the large number of young people who had come to listen to the astronauts.

(14) Protests against Berlusconi: 2011 was the year of massive public protests in Italy asking for resignation of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who resisted as long as he could, till he was finally forced by the economic crisis.

This same period had the Anna Hazare protests against corruption in India.

(15) Another important anti-Berlusconi moment in Bologna was organized by Michele Santoro, a TV journalist. Santoro was thrown out of the state run TV channel RAI for his anti-Berlusconi stance and as a protest he organised a web-based TV transmission in a park in Bologna. Thousands of persons had turned up in the park to show their solidarity to Santoro. During the event, among others, Roberto Begnini also turned up to show his support to Santoro.

(16) Bharatnatyam by students of Alessandra Pizza at the Vecchia Son dance festival. I really liked the red and black costumes they had chosen for this show.

(17) Par Tot Summer Festival of Bologna: The last four images are all from the Par Tot summer festival of Bologna. With almost 3000 participants, including many Italian and international students, the festival presented a huge variety of dances and costumes. My personal favourites were a small group of persons dressed as Avatar/Pandora inhabitants and the group with green and black faces.

So did you like my selection of pictures related to dances, theaters and public events? If you are asked to choose one image, which one would you choose?

***

Chocolate Passion

Do you like chocolates? I love chocolates, though I try to control myself because once I start eating them, I find it very hard to stop!

Our city Bologna has an annual chocolate fair. It is not for those who produce chocolate at industrial levels but it is for small businesses and shops who are passionate about chocolate and make special varieties of chocolate.

Every year, for the chocolate fair, each chocolatier tries to come up with something novel. A couple of years ago, a chocolatier had created sensation by presenting chocolates in the shape of penis and adolescent boys and girls had loved getting themselves clicked doing all kind of things to those chocolates. In the end the lady owner of the shop was asked to remove those chocolates from her stall as they were considered unsuitable for children visiting the fair.

This year the chocolate fair started on Thursday and will be on till tomorrow. Today morning I went to the fair. Here are some of the strange chocolate creations from the fair for you.

I really liked the chocolates made like instruments used by mechannics and carpenters - nails, hammers, screw-drivers, scissors, etc. They looked so real.

Making cups and saucers of chocolate is nothing new but still I liked the special care that had gone into making the cup with white chocolate.

Chocolate sandals, shoes and purses were nice. They gave a completely new meaning to the phrase "joota khaoge?"

Making animals and birds out of chocolate is also common. Still I liked the chocolate owls and tapirs of this stall. Also their chocolate moca (used in Italy for making filter coffee at home) was nice, it looked real with a metallic sheen.

I thought that this chocolate guy was cute with his nice big red tongue and blue eyes.

The chocolate buggy is accompanied by a chocolate parchment saying "Once upon a time there was ..", so you can guess for whom they have made it.

This was another chocolate moca, used for the Italian coffee making, that I liked because of its wonderful rusted, broken and old look.

There were persons selling all kind of fruit jams and honeys mixed with chocolate.

This shop had chocolate shirts, belts, shoes, etc. apart from the more "normal" varieties of chocolates mixed with nuts and fruits.

And finally, the chocolates that I liked most. The chocolate Nikon cameras were fantastic, they looked so real with leathery texture and the opaque glass kind of lenses.

I didn't buy lot of chocolate, just a few things. I have bought some extra bitter chocolate, that I like very much. However, I tasted a lot of different varieties and by the time I reached home, I was feeling full and happy.

So which of these chocolates do you like most?

***

Film director Onir - Florence Interviews (3)

Note: In December 2010, during the River to River film festival in Florence (Italy) I did brief interviews with Aparna Sen, Rahul Bose and Onir. All the three interviews were very satisfying because each of them gave me an opportunity to meet and get to know some lesser known aspects of people I have liked and admired. However, I am really pleased with this Onir interview because it talks of some issues that resonate emotionally with me. I have also contributed to his new film "I am" by helping with the Italian subtitles.

Interview
Sunil: Let us start with your new film "I am". The film was supposed to have five stories but in the end it has only four stories, what happened?

Onir: Initially I was thinking of five stories. However, when I made the second film, I realized that it was going to be difficult because I wanted the entire film to be less than two hours. For the five stories, the time needed would have much more so I decided to limit it to four stories.

Sunil: How did you decide which story to not to use in the film?

Onir: The story I discarded, I was not too happy with the way it was shaping up. I felt that that story needed more space, it needed a full length film just for itself, to do justice to it.

Sunil: Among the four stories of "I am" - Afia, Megha, Abhimanyu and Omar, do you have a favourite?

Onir: I can't say! All the four are stories that I wanted to make into films. When it was difficult to get separate finance for each of them, I decided to make them together. Each part of the film has its own distinct character, mood and style, so each of them is special to me for a different reason.

Sunil: You were born in Bhutan, so that means you are a world citizen. From a family that is originally from Bangladesh, then born in Bhutan and now settled in India. Increasingly, we all have mixed roots and identities.

I have been to some Nepali refugee camps where they had persons who were thrown out of Bhutan, so I am aware of some of the issues involved in this. You have been a migrant. What does that mean to you?

Onir: My leaving Bhutan was linked to the Nepali exodus. My father was principle of a school where they had Nepali children. There ten Nepali students were arrested and next day they were found hanging. So my father resigned and moved to Kolkatta.

Though I was born and brought up in Bhutan, they decided that people who are not of Bhutanese origin, will be second class citizens in that country, so we had to decide what to do. I didn't want to be a second class Bhutanese citizen, I preferred to be Indian citizen. However, when I talk of home, in my mind, my home is the place in Bhutan where I was born and where I grew up.

Due to this reason the story of Megha in "I am" is very special to me, because it is about homelessness. When I came to Kolkatta, though I was a Bengali, I was an outsider. Then I went to Berlin, and there of course, I was even more of an outsider. Then I came and settled in Maharashtra, where language and other things make me a little outsider.

I agree with you that where ever you live becomes a home, and at the same time, you are always an outsider.

I have some very very good friends in Berlin from the days when I was a student there. So there I feel absolutely at home with them, and with them I don't feel that I am an outsider. But at the same time there are things - like the time when there was this bomb blast in London. I was travelling in Berlin in the S-Bahn and suddenly I realized that I was the only brown person on the train and everyone was looking at me. So it was a kind of strange feeling that I had.

But I also have such feelings in Bombay when ever there were those Maharasthrian things .. I travel a lot by local trains and I feel that if you don't know the local language, then the place is not as friendly. Where ever we are, at the time of conflicts you realize that you are an outsider.

Sunil: Did you ever go back to Bhutan?

Onir: That experience is what has influenced Megha's story in "I am". In the story she is back home after twenty years. I had gone back to Bhutan after about thirteen years. Emotionally it was a very exhausting period, to go to the same old house and find other persons staying there. At the same time, there are so many things from your memories that are still the same there. But after that one experience, I didn't want to go back there, because emotionally it was very painful.

Sunil: Salman Rushdie in one of his books had written about "imaginary homelands" that we emigrants carry in our hearts, but these homelands are only spaces in fantasies, because when you do go back, you realize that it is not the same place anymore.

When I go back to places of my childhood, the differences between the reality and my memories always strikes me. Like to go back and find that the "big square" of my memories is actually a narrow little space. Did that happen when you went back to Bhutan?

Onir: I realized that all my friends were gone and the few there were .. in Bhutan, people get married very early, so there were these old friends with three kids and I realized that our worlds had grown apart a lot.

When I went to our old house, I immediately spotted this tree, I loved gardening and I had planed that tree, to see it was very emotional, though it was a small thing. Then inside the house, where we had our fireplace, the hole above it for the smoke was still there, though they had shifted the fire place .. so there were so many small things that brought back old memories.

Sunil: Your decision to get in to films came at a time when the TV and media revolution had not yet taken place. So how did your family react to it?

Onir: My parents were keen that I become a doctor. They wanted one son to become a doctor and the other son to become an engineer. After school, I came to study in Kolkatta and my father got me admission in the science college. He was thinking that after the science college I will try to go to the medical college. After he went back, after one week I applied for a literature course in another college. I shifted there and only after my name was cut off from the science college, I told my father.

So first there was shock in the family that I was doing literature and arts. Then I started doing very well in literature so my father was happy, he started saying that I will become a professor. Then one week before the finals of my post-graduate course, I quit and came to Berlin to study cinema and that was another shock to them. They were worried that we had no connection in Bombay or in the film fraternity, and Bombay is a very family driven industry, so were worried.

When I managed to my first film, it took me ten years to do it in Bombay .. I knew that this was my goal. I also knew that it will take time, and I was patient. I never thought, oh my god, it is taking me so long, etc. I knew that I was going to do it. When they finally saw my film ... and even now, they know that I have zero savings, I don't have a house, I don't have a car, what ever I earn goes back into film making because that is what makes me happy .. but now I find that they are happy about my work and they share my happiness when my films get made. I know that they are worried, but they are also proud of me.

Sunil: Did their other son become an engineer?

Onir: Actually he went into research. He did do computer engineering, but he liked physics. He went to do physics at Presidency college and I know that my parents are very proud of him. He has recently won the highest award that a scientist can get in India. I don't remember the name of the award, but it was given by the Prime Minister of India, about one month ago. He is very well known in his field of work.

My parents never really pushed us .. and now they are happy about both of us.

Sunil: You said that they were happy when they saw your first film, but that film (My Brother Nikhil - MBN) had a theme that may not have been very easy for your parents?

Onir: I was also worried about their reaction .. regarding the sexuality issue. My mother called me from Kolkatta. I was in Bombay and she had just seen the movie and was in tears. And she said, "..but couldn't you get a better looking man opposite Sanjay?" (laughs) And my father said, "I was never so nasty as a father" (laughs) and I had to explain that film's father was not you. Their reaction was very interesting.

About my dad, I was very moved because I had gone to New York for a screening of MBN and at the same time there was the first GLBT film festival in Kolkatta and my father went there. He went up on the stage and said, "I am very happy that you are giving him an award but I would rather you all paid a ticket and went to see the film in cinema theatre and not to see it free here."

Sunil: Actually when I had seen MBN, though it was a daring theme in Indian cinema, I had also thought that to show he is gay with a very strict authoritarian father was a kind of stereotyping. Another thing that had struck me was in terms of film's structure, I had thought that it very similar to an American film called "Jia" with Angelina Jolie.

Onir: It is interesting that you are pointing this out because people have compared MBN with Philadelphia. They were on the similar theme, but in terms of films structure, MBN was inspired from "Jia". I had been thinking, how do I make this film when I don't have much budget, how to tell this story. From "Jia", I got the idea of docu-fiction, though the idea that people are talking about a person, whom they had loved and who is dead ...

Sunil: I had felt that "Jia", though similar in structure, differed from MBN in an important aspect. In the sense that in "Jia", each person talking about the character played by Angelina Jolie presents a very different person, it was as if she showed a different aspect of her personality to different people, while in MBN, the vision of Nikhil by the different people was really similar...

Onir: Yes, we didn't take any story idea from other films, we just took the idea of docu-fiction and other persons talking about Nikhil, mainly his sister talking about him ...

Sunil: You have also been a song-designer for "Daman". What does that mean, to be a song-designer?

Onir: I had first done some song editing for Kalpana (Lajmi) and it was my first film work. When she started "Daman", she asked me to be the editor and it was my first film as an editor. For me it was an important step to get into films. I had liked her "Rudaali" and "Ek pal". As an editor I wanted to be on the sets and see what was happening, even if most editors don't do that. I knew that I wanted to be a director, so I wanted to see and learn as much as possible. So when she asked me, "Do you want to come" I said, "Of course and I will give whatever help I can give".

She knew that I had a sense of the music, so she asked me, "Do you want to direct the songs" as she didn't have money for a choreographer. I immediately said yes.

Before that I had already produced two music albums with Pritam. I had brought Pritam in film industry. Even there, he was composing the songs while I was a kind of song designer. There are different elements in the songs, and a song designer influences how those elements shape up, there were a lot of discussions and I was also involved in those. Decisions like what kind of singers, how many singers, what kind of instrumentation, what kind of song, etc. So I was part of the song design.

In "Daman" I was involved not only in the process of music recording, I also went on the sets and started shooting the songs. This experience with Kalpana was great because she had a small unit. Most of the assistants there were working on the film as a job, but they didn't have the passion. I was waking up early, I used to go to the sets take care of the art, check the costumes, etc. I didn't want more money but I wanted to learn as much as possible from all the different departments. So that when the time came for me to my film, I will be less dependent upon others.

Sunil: There was an interview of another person from south, who has worked with you on "I am" ..

Onir: Sandip

Sunil: In this interview, he had said that you are very well organized and you plan every thing in advance. Do you think that you are a "perfectionist" kind of person who wants to control every thing?

Onir: It is more about planning .. I have always been the producer of my films. And I have always made my films with extremely tight budgets. "I am" was shot in 24 days and MBN was shot in 28 days. For me planning and preparation means that I am not sitting on the sets wondering what to do next, what shot to take, etc. All that has already been planned and on the sets, I do a lot of home work. On the sets, I spend more time with my actors to prepare them for the scene.

Money and time are important resources, it is extremely important to respect what you have and to get the best out of it. For this self-discipline, I thank my Berlin days. Discipline is something I learned there.

Sunil: You also did some work for Ram Gopal Varma?

Onir: I did editing of some promos for his film "Bhoot". It was a nightmare working for him but any way ..

Sunil: I think that it is appropriate that working on a theme like Bhoot (ghosts), you have nightmares .. but my question is about other film makers and how they have influenced you?

Onir: I don't have an icon or an idol. I love the works of lot of different people who are good film makers, ... but the person who really inspired me to get into films was an experience when I was very young. It was because of the images from that film that stayed with me, very strong imagery that made me dream and want to become a part of films. That was Shyam Benegal and the film was Junoon. I was really young at that time and I didn't understand so much, but the visual impact was so strong that it made me desire to become part of the films ..

Sunil: Junoon was good .. I remember its premier at Chanakya in Delhi, where Shyam Benegal had come with Shabana Azmi and Deepti Naval... I read some where that you have some three old scripts and you are working on one of them with NFDC?

Onir: It was my first script and now I am reviewing it .. NFDC has been a partner in developing that script and I am planning to make it after "I am".

Sunil: Are there other old film scripts that are waiting to be made into films or are they part of a development process?

Onir: They are not ready for developed into films .. they keep on getting modified. I always keep on writing. I can't sit idle. When I am waiting for something, I will start writing. I write new scripts, I develop ideas, may be some of them will some day become films, may be not ..

Sunil: I wish you would make a musical. I like the music of your films. I loved the music in MBN.

Onir: MBN was at Milan GLBT film festival and it won the audience choice award. I remember the next day, a group of Italian men came to me and started singing "Le chalo ..", it really touched me.

Sunil: OK Onir, thanks for this interview. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Rahul Bose - Florence Interviews (2)

Rahul Bose, 43 years old, is known for his subtle and understated roles in many films such as Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, The Japanese Wife, Shourya, etc. He had directed "Everybody says I am fine" and is supposed to direct, "Moth smoke" (based on a book by Mohsin Ahmed). He has also played in the Indian national Rugby team for many years.

I had the opportunity to meet and interview Bose during the River to River film festival in Florence (Italy) in December 2010. In the festival there was four of his films - Split wide open, Every body says I'm fine, The Japanese wife and I am. I had spoken to him before "I am" was shown in the festival.

Here is a transcript of my talk with him, that focused mainly on his work with voluntary organisations and only briefly touched some issues related to his films.
***

Sunil: I am curious about your role in Onir's "I Am". I know the screen play of "I am" because I did the Italian subtitles of of that film. It has four stories - Afie, Megha, Abhimanyu and Omar. In which of these four stories you play a role?

Rahul: I am in "Omar" but I am not Omar, I have the other guy's role.

Sunil: Can you say something about this role?

Rahul: This part deals with homosexuality, related to the judgement on the abolition of section 377, which decriminalized homosexuality in India. My part of the film looks at that. It looks at life before the judgement and after the judgement. It is about the discrimination and terror inflicted on homosexuals.

Sunil: This is not your first time with Onir, you were also there in "Bas ek pal"?

Rahul: No, this is my first time with Onir.

Sunil: I read your article in Tehalka magazine a few months ago, about raising funds through an auction. Then I also read about some work that you did in leading a group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Bombay.

Rahul: That was the "group of groups". We had formed it after the tragedy of 26/11 so that we could get together and speak with one voice to the Government. There were a lot of groups that were speaking at that time, but we were all speaking with different voices. So our attempt was to get everyone together. We had worked very hard and in the end we had 52 groups under one umbrella. But like all things, the work needed to keep something like this going on, is so tremendous that after about 6 months, it fell apart.

Sunil: What kind of things this group was trying to achieve?

Rahul: So many issues linked to 26/11, like asking for police reforms ..

Sunil: In the sense of the outcry that happened after 26/11?

Rahul: Yes, but we wanted to give it a more secular and tempered response, by looking ahead and not reacting in a knee-jerk manner by blaming people and other nations unnecessarily. So it's aim was to try to speak in one voice and to speak in a temperate reasonable voice as citizens of a city that wants to say things to the Government ..

Sunil: But the kind of things that are allowed to happen in Bombay, they are so negative, and where Government does not step in, it does not do anything to stop those groups .. so what can you expect from that kind of Government?

Rahul: Whatever the Governments do or don't do in Maharashtra, it is important that they are made aware that there is an active citizenry that is watching, controlling and is going to speak about it. Just doing that is important. I am not saying that it made a big difference, but our idea was to tell them that we are here, we are listening and watching, and that we are angry. We want good governance.

We don't need 26/11 to ask for better governance. The city has had a very patchy record of good governance. Politically it is a hot bed.

Sunil: Tell me about your foundation.

Rahul: My foundation is called "The Foundation". I was raising money for this foundation through India's first sports' auction. We had 25 pieces from 25 Indian world champions, and we raised money for the foundation.

Sunil: What does the Foundation do?

Rahul: It has two initiatives - REACH and HEAL.

REACH is about restoring equality though education for advancement of children. We have given scholarships to 6 children in Andaman and Nicobar islands, to study at the Rishi Valley school outside Bangalore. The idea is to empower children, who otherwise would never leave their communities. They are getting education at a world class institution, so that they can one day get into mainstream of India's economic life and hopefully they will also take their learnings to their communities, or they can go anywhere in the world. But we never see anyone from Andaman Nicobar in any jobs in mainland India. So it is my wish that these children will become a bridge between people.

But there are different ways to do it and there are different questions. One way could be to build world class schools in Andaman and Nicobar, but then that won't really bring those children out of Andaman to go to the rest of India and become part of mainstream economic life.

Now we are looking at supporting children from another part of the country that is also disfranchised, we want to send children from there to world class schools. The schools have to be chosen carefully and the entire thing takes almost a year to be organised.

The other initiative is HEAL - help eradicate abuse through learning. It is about sexual abuse of children. 53% of all Indian children have some kind of sexual abuse.

Sunil: What kind of data you looked up on this issue? It sounds huge, like almost every second person in India is sexually abused?

Rahul: It is a police data, and it is absolutely shocking. Like most other countries, these are hidden statistics.

Sunil: How long you have been involved in the NGO work? How did it start?

Rahul: I have been involved in it since 2002, after the Gujarat riots. At that time, I began to work with a gender based NGO in Mumbai called Aksharma that worked together with Muslim girls and some Hindu girls, mainly dalits. The idea was to educate them with values of secularism and to empower them slowly, slowly expand their social orthodoxies so that they could attain some kind of status in their communities.

Sunil: This kind of involvement in different issues, has it changed the way you look at those issues, between 8 years ago when you started and today?

Rahul: Yes, completely. I went into it with good intentions but with little knowledge. As you start to understand how social orthodoxies work, you start to respect the need to change things very slowly without antagonising the other side. For example, you don't want to antagonise the men in a girl's family. She has to go back and live with them, so it has to be done in a way that creates consensus, slowly. There can't be gender equality without men.

One learns, especially in India, that there are complex problems within the problems. It could be income, it can be health. You suddenly realize that the woman can't go out of the house because she is not well, she does not get right kind of food. India is a deeply humbling place, you think that you know things, but you don't. You start appreciating that to bring about any change, you need a long long time and it is never permanent, you always have to go back and look.

Sunil: The children you are supporting in Andman and Nicobar, they come from indigenous families?

Rahul: No, only one of them is half tribal. Out of 550,000 persons in Andmans and Nicobar, only about 35,000 are tribal and so there are about 8,000 tribal children. Rest of the persons came there in different waves of migration. All the children that we support come from modest socio-economic backgrounds.

Sunil: I am asking so many questions about your NGO work, because I work in a NGO too, an organisation that deals with persons affected with leprosy and disabled persons. I just came back from Guwahati, two days ago.

Rahul: I became familiar with Andamans after the tsunami. I made 23 trips there over a period of two and a half years, to organise relief and rehabilitation. I was representing a network of organisations called the Solidarity Initiative. We managed to do a few concrete things on the ground and it was satisfying.

Sunil: So many issues you are talking about and specifically in terms of secularism, how did you get there? What made you think about these issues in these terms?

Rahul: I think that part of it is do with the way I grew up. My family, the city, the milieu .. Bombay, where I grew up .. my friends - like I never asked why Nasir was Muslim, Vinay was a U.P. Brahmin, Cyrus was a Parsi. They were and remain my childhood friends. At that time, in our upscale economic circle, religion didn't play an important role. But it changed in 1992, when there was popular religious resurgence from all sides ..

Sunil: After the Babri Masjid thing?

Rahul: Not just that, it happened on all sides. Today we also have Christian fundamentalism, we have Hindu terror. You can see that today terror is polarised along religious lines.

Sunil: Let us leave this line of discussion, and to conclude, let me go back to the films. Your image has been that of an understated kind of actor, so I was a little surprised when I had seen "Split wide open", it was pleasant kind of surprise that you can play loud characters also.

Rahul: Thanks.

Sunil: Among all the roles that you have played, have there been characters that you didn't like becoming? Characters that made you feel uneasy?

Rahul: It was my role in Thakshak.

Sunil: The villain's role?

Rahul: It took me to some ugly places in my heart and I was afraid to be that ruthless psychopath, a complex person. It was very different, mentally very different from me as a person. Even the character in "Everybody says I'm fine" was very challenging.

Sunil: What was your role in "Everybody says I'm fine", I had seen it long time ago and I don't remember it.

Rahul: I was the actor who has no work, a flamboyant character who wears all kinds of weird clothes. And, all his lies about how successful he is. (Smiling) In real life, I am not very successful, but I don't lie about it.

Sunil: But you are successful, especially in your own particular kind of cinema.

Rahul: Yes, I am happy.

Sunil: You also had some mainstream films. But were they not commercially successful?

Rahul: Hardly any of my films have been commercially successful! Perhaps Shourya, Chameli, Pyar ke side effects and Jhankar Beats had some commercial success. Two of my Bengali films, Antaheen and Anuranan had success in Calcutta, they ran for 100 days.

Sunil: And you are recognised as a good actor ..

Rahul: So I am happy ..

Sunil: OK, thanks Rahul for this chat. I greatly enjoyed it.

Note
I think that I was too much taken up by his work with NGOs that I forgot to ask all other things. Yet, I am happy that I spoke to him about NGO work and other social issues. He came across as a sensible and articulate person.

If I had more time, I would liked to talk more about their scholarship for poor children from marginalised groups such as from Andaman and Nicobar islands. I would liked to share ideas and experiences of organisations that I have visited in many countries that are concerned about making sure that children from marginalised groups are not made to feel ashamed about their original cultures and that strive to keep strong links between the children and their original communities.

I also wanted to know more about his parents, his schools, the things that influenced and molded him as a person, but there was no time for it.

If you have not read his Tehlaka article, I suggest that you read it. He writes really well.

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Aparna Sen - Florence Interviews (1)

In December 2010, during the River to River Film Festival, I had a brief talk with well known film actor and director, Ms. Aparna Sen. Two of her films were at the festival. Her new film, "Iti Mrinalini" (2011) opened the River to River Film Festival, while the beautiful and lyrical "The Japanese wife" (2010) was the festival's closing film. Both the films were loved by the people but then Ms. Sen is no stranger to rave reviews, right from the first film that she directed almost 30 years ago - 36 Chowranghi Lane.

As a teenager, I had a huge crush on Aparna Sen and to talk to her was a great moment for me. We were sititng in a bar near the Odeon cinema, a heritage cinema building in Florence, where festival was being held. Here is a transcript of my interview with Ms. Sen.

Sunil: I can't believe I am sitting here talking to you. I had first seen you "The Guru" probably in 1970!

Aparna: No, it was not 1970, it must have been much later ... no, probably you are right, it was around 1970.

Sunil: Yes, I think it was 1970. I had seen it at Rivoli in Delhi. Ok, lets come to our interview. I have read a lot of your interviews and I would like to try to ask something that hasn't already been said about you. What did it mean to you as a child, to grow up in a house where your father was a film critic ...

Aparna: Apart from being a film critic, actually both my parents were the founder members of Calcutta Film Society, so what it meant was that as a child I was brought up on a diet of best of the world cinema. My taste in cinema was formed by that experience. I was seeing films like Battleship Pottemkin, Ivan the Terrible (1) and Passion of Joan the Arc (2). So these were the kind of films, I was brought up with.

Sunil: I read some where that you did your first film when you were ten years old?

Aparna: No, it is wrong, I didn't do any film when I was ten.

Sunil: So your first film was Teen Kanya (3) .. did you realize at that time that you were working with the great Satyajit Roy?

Aparna: Not really. I mean, I knew that he was a big director, but for me, more than anything else, he was a friend of my father. It was a lovely story that I had read recently at that time and I had liked the story very much. I liked being Mrinmoyee.

It was very exciting, but for me it was more like a picnic. I didn't have to go to school, no exams. So it was lot of fun.

Sunil: And going back to school after doing the film, how was it? Had you become famous?

Aparna: School was awful after that. After all the excitement, the routine of the school was terrible and there were people who made fun of me, made little remarks and all that.

I had also missed my exams. I went back to school in time to give exams on 2-3 subjects. I did very well in those subjects. I was very good at English and history. I think that probably I came first in those subjects, but on the whole, I was no where because I had missed on so many subjects. We had a kind of marks reading meeting at the end of the year and when the principle read my marks, she said something like, "Oh, so we are more interested in our acting than in our studies", or something like that, sarcastic, and I was close to tears.

Sunil: You spent part of your childhood in a place called Hazaribag?

Aparna: My grandfather used to live there. He was a Brahmosamaj missionary  and he had a nice interesting, charitable dispensary over there. It was a beautiful house with a garden, very simple and austere, but very beautiful. We used to go there every year during our holidays. For our holidays we always went there to Hazaribag, especially in winters. It was lovely.

Sunil: You have done lot of films. Was there a character you hated doing, which you thought was completely unlike you?

Aparna: Sometimes you had to do films as a mainstream actress where you didn't like it and you were doing it just for the money. I did a film called Abhichar in Bengali, I didn't want to do it, so I asked for a huge sum of money. But they said yes, and so I had to do it. But I didn't like it at all, I hated every minute of that role, it was directed by Biswajeet Chatterjee.

Sunil: Biswajeet the actor, Prasanjeet's father?

Aparna: Yes he directed it.

Sunil: Your mother was cousin of a well known poet ..

Aparna: Yes, Jibananda Das.

Sunil: Did you write poetry too?

Aparna: Not really. I mean I wrote poetry like everyone does in their youth but it was nothing important. Jibananda Das was one of the great poets after Tagore and he was my mother's second cousin. He was also very close to my parents.

Sunil: Did your mother write as well (4)?

Aparna: Yes, she wrote short stories.

Sunil: Did you feel that you were not very successful in Hindi cinema?

Aparna: (smiling) I didn't try very hard, my heart was in Bengal. I always made my Hindi films for the wrong reasons. Like when I had an income tax installment to be paid or needed money for a car ... I never did a Hindi film for the right reason!

Sunil: Thanks Aparna ji.

PS: Actually I had prepared lot of questions to ask to Aparna Sen, but there was not enough time for a proper discussion. On lot of different things, I would have liked to ask more and understand more. However I was very much aware that in another ten minutes, Onir's new film "I Am" was going to start and we both wanted to see it.

And I was also a little overwhelmed by the idea of being with my teenage crush!

May be there will be another opportunity to meet her and to interview her with more in-depth questions. Inshallah.

Notes:
(1) Battleship Pottemkin and Ivan the terrible were both Russian films directed by Sergei Eisenstein
(2) Passion of Joan the Arc, silent film in French by Carl Theodor Dreyer,1928
(3) Teen Kanya: directed by Satyajit Ray, came out in 1961 when Aparna was 16 years old; the film was based on works by Ravindranath Tagore, it had three stories and Aparna played the role of tomboyish Mrinmoyee in third story, Samapati. On that same story, Samapti by Tagore, Rajshri films had made "Uphaar" in 1971 where the role of Mrinomoyee was played by Jaya Bhaduri.
(4) Aparna's mother was Supriya Dasgupta.

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