Creating magic on the silver screen

Article and Interview by Niranjan N Kaggere

Perhaps you will be moved as you go on watching his documentaries and might feel displaced and start thinking about the probable remedies for the questions which were thrown up by the characters on the screen. Almost all of his films, while depicting diversified messages, tries to diagnose the rigid society which is filled with the perfidies. Every frame oozes with the logical thoughts, each shot unfolds the reality with candid ingenuity. They whisk over everything from the silly points of our daily life to the complex ideologies of left and right origin dealing with the very fabric of human life. As you finish watching them, you arrive at the usual conclusion that these documentaries must have been by a renowned film maker. If you think in that way then you are committing an error. The director of these documentaries is only 24 and still a nascent in the field, promising to deliver much in future. Abhaya Simha, a third year student of Film Direction at the Pune's prestigeous Film and Television Institute of India is the brain behind these moving melodramas. Abhay's tryst with the camera began not by choice but by a sheer chance. When he had the idea of film in his mind obviously he was not buoyed by the reputation and prize or money but he discovered a tool in it to chisel out the lopsided values of the society. During his graduation at St. Aloysius College, Mangalore he had an opportunity to make a documentary on multiple births and its psycological perspectives. That was the launch pad for this flambeaus creative springtide and gave a vesevious reply to the pompei of limited resources with a fine touch. Since then with the unfaltering determination he has been growing innovatively by juxtaposing all the experiences he incurred from each documentaries and films. Today, at 24 he owns his own nascent production house, The Roaring Lion Productions and has made more than 20 pictures in both documentary and fiction film field. At the national level film festival organised by Symbiosis his film "One Fine Day" has won the award. He has also screened his movie " Sea Side Story" in the International Film Festival of India at Goa in 2005. As we all know the film medium has virtually taken everybody with its magical spell. we find hardly anybody who is not stirred by films. The glitterring silver screen, the glory it brings, the reputation it brings in, all have attracted more and more people into it either as spectators or as workers. But many who have gone after this stardom have been presented with the bitter experiences as well as exuberant results. What really matters is the person's hard work and strong will determined to achieve success. In an exclusive Interview to Niranjan N Kaggere, Abhaya shares his filmdom experiences WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE THIS CAREER? It all began accidentally when I was asked to make a documentary film during my graduation. Even before that the art of filmmaking fascinated me. Cinema is one art form where many other art forms such as painting, singing, dance, drama, story telling club in. Soon I realized that there is a great potential and satisfaction in filmmaking and since then I began my journey. HOW HARD WERE THE FORMATIVE DAYS OF YOUR CAREER? It was both difficult and confusing during the initial days as I couldn't find anyone who has an experience in film making who could really help me out to know more about films. Adding to it i hardly find any books on cinema in my place. These hurdles made me get into practical side of film making all by myself and learn through the experiences. But i must thank many people who trusted on me even when i was at the lowest interms of experience. Later through the efforts of my senior friends at college I heard about Film and Television Institute of India, Pune (FTII). Soon after my graduation in Journalism I got into this premier Film School as one among the topper at all India level entrance exam. The regular rapport with the film personalities and studying the trends in world cinema i started to crystalize my own personality. WHAT WOULD YOU PREFER TO WORK WITH; CINEMA OR DOCUMENTARY? WHY? Actually there is no such distinction in my mind. Filmmaking, in general, is an art either it is a cinema or a documentary. To speak interms of genres both are different disciplines and as a film maker I would like both . I feel some themes and topics demand fictional touch and some other suits best with the documentary frame. HOW DIFFERENT IS DOCUMENTARY FILM MAKING THAN CINEMA? For any film maker there is no difference. Both are audio-visual art forms and more importantly both are work of fiction. Sometimes even documentary is considered as non fiction. But for me when you are capturing an image and sound; it is reality and the interpretation of the world by an artist (director) is inevitably mixed in with the reality to make the piece fictious. But if we have to make distinction from what we see as documentary filmmaking and cinema, I would put it as, cinema is more a team work and documentary is mostly an individualistic work. WHAT ARE YOUR OPINIONS ON THE PRESENT DAY FILMS? (I will presume this question to be about main stream Indian films.) There is decent amount of experiment being tried in the industry on these days. People are trying their hands on various styles of narratives and presentations. Of course the process is slow but it is determined. . On the other hand, off beat films as I see are trying the same off beat things and becoming main stream 'Off Beat' films!. Hindi film industry has good openings for young filmmakers due to recent economical development. New technology in film making is slowly creeping on to Indian silver screen. WHAT DO YOU CHOSE MORE OFTEN AS SUBJECTS IN YOUR DOCUMENTARIES? As such there are no favourite topics for me for a documentary film. But basically every filmmaker is disposed with a certain world view around which he or she works through out their life. This decides what kind of topics I would opt to make films. I have tried my hands on various topics till now in the process of building my own world view. I have done documentaries on topics related to forest conservation, folk art forms and also some corporate films. Till now I have been making films about people, places, heritage and culture. I have not yet settled down on a particular topic and I would feel that there should be no limitation. WHOM DO YOU CONSIDER AS YOUR ROLE MODEL IN THE INDUSTRY? I began with one role model in the industry when I started watching cinema and as I grew, I had several and now I have none! But I do admire the works of Girish Kasaravalli from Karnataka and in the world cinema I admire films by Kieslowski, Ingmar Bergman, Tarkovsky, Bresson, Kursava, Ozu and many more. So it would be really difficult to particularise one as my role model. HOW FAR THE DOCUMENTARIES WE SHOOT BRING IN A CHANGE AS MOST OF THEM PASS OFF UNNOTICED? As a filmmaker my primary concern is not to repaire the society but to believe that I am an artist and would like to express myself in the medium I am familiar with. So going unnoticed doesn't really bother me. I believe that if your content is strong enough to touch the people, it will surely reach them one day. Initially I had this idea of changing the world but now I have stopped believing that films we make really changes the world. Cinema has its own artistic values which will appeal at different level than a public serving message. Filmmakers are here to raise questions and not to solve them. In a healthy society if questions are raised, it will be solved by intelligent people in it. So raising a question is the duty of an artist that is all. IS THERE ANY TOPIC WHICH YOU FIND AS CHALLENGING FOR ANY DOCUMENTARY MAKER? I don't really think that there is any topic which is difficult for a filmmaker. Every topic guides you to look upon it in a particular way. There are thousands of way to approach any topic and the filmmaker takes a particular approach which is again guided by his or her own personality.This process makes thousands of possibilities for any given topic. More over, there is no fixed format for a documentary film. Hence all topics or issues are within the ambit of filmmaking. WOULD YOU HAVE ANY PLANS TO MAKE DOCUMENTARIES MORE POPULAR AS OUR YOUNGSTERS ARE RUNNING AFTER THE BOLLYWOOD OR HOLLYWOOD NUMBERS? In India documentary filmmaking has acquired stereo typic notion. The visual piece becomes too boring if the person is not sympathetic towards the idea being dealt at. But unfortunately this kind of documentary filmmaking is highly regarded by the government bodies. There are so many other ways in which people have made documentaries even in India which don't get noticed by people and it needs a socio cultural background to have that kind of narratives to adopted in. Media education has to embark upon a long voyage to realize this dream. In this era where mass media is becoming such a huge influencing factor, it can play a major role by being a platform for documentary films. I am happy to say that these efforts have also begun in recent days. HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THE COMPETITION IN YOUR FIELD? HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO COPE WITH IT? Competition! I haven't faced any competition in filmmaking till now because I am not competing with anyone. Every one will be doing on their own stuff and can't be like one another at any cost. So there is no question of uniformity in the work we do. So Competition never bothers us. WHICH IS THE FIRST FILM FESTIVAL YOU ATTENDED? The first film festival that I attended was International Film Festival of India (IFFI)-2003 at Delhi. Afterwards I attended the next year's IFFI at Goa too. In Goa festival one of my short films, 'Sea Side Story' was screened. That was an amazing experience. At the events like these one gets to see films from many countries and get to know about the current happenings in the world cinema. Apart from these major festivals I have also attended other small film festivals like Pune International Film Festival, Asian Film Festival and Symbiosis Film Festival etc. WHO WERE THE PERSONALITIES WITH WHOM YOU WORKED EARLIER? As I mentioned earlier I didn't work with any personalities before I began my own career. But I have great respect for Mr G.N Mohan from E-TV who helped me by introducing me to this medium, Mr Shekar Dattatri noted film maker of India who gave me some good tips and keeps guiding me even to this date. And there are people like Fr Richard Rego SJ, Mr. Anil Pinto, and Mr. Damodara Shetty who always back me in all my endevours. There are so many of them who trusted me and supported me to become what I am now. Many people believe that assisting someone is the beginning of your career. But it is not true. With the digital technology, every one can start making films at anytime.