He was part of our childhood stories; he found space in our school curriculum and when we grew up, the image of Balraj Sahni as the genial Pathan got etched in our memory. Kabuliwala never really left us. Scheduled to release this Friday, Bioscopewala presents a modern take on Rabindranath Tagore’s 1892 Bengali short story about a merchant from Kabul who strikes an emotional bond with a five-year-old girl living in Kolkata (Calcutta). Co-written and directed by Deb Medhekar, Bioscopewala stars Danny Denzongpa, Geetanjali Thapa and Adil Hussain in pivotal roles. An alumnus of FTII, he has made over 150 ad films over the last eight years. Bioscopewala is Medhekar’s debut feature film, which comes almost a decade after he made his diploma film Swayambhu Sen , which got screened at the 2009 International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in the Indian Panorama section.
Here, Medhekar talks about the challenges of making his first feature film, the casting choices he exercised as well as the choice of music while emphasising upon the need to understand the audience so as to make content that’s both relevant as well as platform agnostic.
Excerpts:
What made you choose Bioscopewala as your debut feature film? What is the message that you are trying to propagate through the film?
You see, it is not always easy to get your first film. Actually, I was approached with the idea by Sunil Doshi who told me that he wanted to remake Kabuliwala . It was basically his idea to make Kabuliwala into Bioscopewala . The idea was further developed by me along with the treatment to make the film relevant to today’s audience. However, the characters are mostly the same as in the original story by Tagore.
I think the film is essentially about trying to complete whatever is missing in our lives. I believe we all tend to live incomplete lives even though we are capable of filling the gaps in the lives of others, which in turn can help us fill in the voids in our own lives.
The music of Bioscopewala has elements of Afghan folk music in it. What kind of research did you put in to get the right musical combination for the film?
Yes, we had to do a thorough search for musicians who could play the rabab. We even recorded a student from Pune who would play a unique one-stringed instrument for us. I must also give credit to Gulzar sahib who wrote the lyrics, and for connecting me with Sandesh Shandilya. Sandesh, these days, is based in Germany and is doing orchestral music, which worked really well for Bioscopewala .
Deb Medhekar
Tell us about the creative thought behind choosing Geetanjali Thapa as the movie’s female lead.
I wanted somebody who looks frail but strong and I thought Geetanjali was the right choice for the role. Her character goes through turmoil and in the process, she becomes strong and ultimately makes her own decision. While I did watch her in Liar’s Dice, I still thought it was important to have a series of auditions with her to see if things were working fine.
Danny Denzongpa has been known to be quite choosy when it comes to doing roles these days. How did you manage to rope him in for the titular part?
Actually, Danny sahib liked the script and the very next day, he invited me to his place. The idea for casting actually came from Sunil Doshi. Of course, we had seen him play an Afghan in Khuda Gawah . Now, the Pashtuns and the Hazaras are two of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan. And, the Harazas have Mongolian origins. Danny Sahab’s character, Rehmat Khan, has the same ethnicity in Bioscopewala and so the casting worked well for us.
A major part of the film is set in Afghanistan. Tell us about the different shooting locations that you used in the film.
Well, the Afghanistan sequences are actually shot in the north-western Ladakh. The landscapes as well as the architecture there had great similarity to what we found out about Afghanistan in our research. We actually went through the photographs from the 1990s, in particular those taken by Steve McCurry during the time he was travelling through Afghanistan. We went back to magazines and studied an immense amount of photographs. After completing our research, we did the recce for about 10-12 days in order to find exactly the right locations for our shoot.
You are in the middle of a transition from being an ad filmmaker to a feature film director. How do you see this journey?
I think advertising prepares you for the challenges of cinema and so the transition is quite natural. In my opinion, a filmmaker is a filmmaker and the key is to understand your audience and the rest takes care of itself.
As long as I am clear about what I want my audience to feel, I don’t see any major hassle.
As an alumnus of FTII where one is exposed to the best in world cinema, who are the filmmakers that have influenced you the most?
The international filmmakers who have influenced me the most include Emir Kusturica and Spike Jonze. I really love what Ram Madhvani does with his realism and his constantly moving camera. As far as Indian cinema is concerned, I am greatly inspired by the mid-1980s work by the likes of Bhimsain Khurana, Amol Palekar and Mrinal Sen.
