On the Road to thrill

Sanal Sasidharan on whether the screening of his film at the Venice festival will help the movie get traction in India

Sandeep Sahdev
'For me, the controversy around S Durga might be a closed chapter, but this does not mean that the situation has gotten better for filmmakers,' says Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, Filmmaker.

He has this strange quality of looking at his cinema from a distance. No, not distracted, but it seems that he is constantly thinking about the next movie brewing in his mind. As his latest, Chola (Shadow of Water) hits Venice Film festival (August 28-September 7), the filmmaker who made national headlines for the controversy surrounding his movie S Durga,insists that though it is always pleasant to get noticed, he isn’t really keeping his hopes too high.

"Films like these are not very commercially viable, and generally restricted to the film festival circuit. Being selected for a major festival does not really guaranteed commercial release here. Of course, the acclaim warms you."

A fast-paced drama in which two teens run away to the city, where their nightmares begin, in Chola, Sasidharan, for the first time has casted well-recognised faces like Joju George and Nimisha Sajayan.The latter walked away with the Best Actress trophy at Kerala State Film Award for her brilliant portrayal.

Talk to the director about the fact that Chola, like S Durga is also a road film’, and what really attracts him to the genre, and he asserts, "They both might be road films but that’s where the similarity ends. Yes, I think road films hold a special appeal for me. Perhaps it is to do with the fact that I love travelling. Long journeys have a peculiar way of making you come close to yourself. Also, in road films, everything is moving, all the time. And yes, I don’t like being static."

The S Durga controversy might be the past for him, but he knows that things haven’t really changed. "For me, it might be a closed chapter, but this does not mean that the situation has gotten better for filmmakers. If someone tries to comment on the society or the political scenario, he/she is suddenly confronted with a massive force." His untitled next film, which will be in a mix of Hindi, English and Malayalam, will see characters trekking. "Well, not a road film but not static either," he laughs.

Speak to him about the rising popularity of streaming platforms, with several films being specially made for the medium, and Sasidharan asserts, "As far as I am concerned, cinema is synonymous with the experience of a theatre the screen, the sound, the whole atmospherics. Of course, I understand that as compared to the past, much fewer number of people are watching movies on a big screen. As far as online streaming is concerned, the there is this mindset prevalent in India that movies should be free on the Internet, something that lends a massive blow to the revenue.

Sasidharan, who was a lawyer before turning to filmmaking admits that donning the black robe was never a passion, and that he chose that for the middle-class’ security owing to his father’s opposition to cinema. "Even after entering the profession, I just could not focus on my work in the courts. After all, since childhood, my dream was to be behind the camera," remembers the director who quit advocacy around 2006.

The director, who has been quite vocal about the need to have all-women film crews insists that the time has come for women artists to make their 'own' films. "Being a part of the Kazhcha Film Forum, which is encouraging all women film crews, I feel that they (women) have a peculiar sensibility. Let us not forget that the present-day audience is much open to good content. Keeping in view the recent #metoo and Sabarimala Temple controversy, women filmmakers can bring forth a fresh perspective."

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