On April 16, Neeraj Ghaywan put out what he calls the happiest tweet — announcing that his debut directorial Masaan has been selected for the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section of Cannes Film Festival, 2015. Four days later, speaking to us, he admits the feeling hasn’t sunk in, yet. It’s a good thing, he says, for he’ll be able to concentrate on work at hand.
Masaan is an Indo-French collaboration, produced by Manish Mundra, Macassar Productions, Phantom Films, Sikhya Entertainment, Arte France Cinema and Pathé Productions and stars Richa Chadha, Sanjay Mishra and Sweta Tripathi among others. Set in Varanasi, it has three narratives bound together by the Ganges. The script went through a churn at Sundance lab and Neeraj won the Sundance Institute/Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award.
Neeraj finds himself among the long list of engineering graduates who entered cinema. He studied at CBIT, Hyderabad, before pursuing MBA at Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune. “I took pride in getting placed in a good company with a good pay package,” he recalls. For six years, he learnt and applied principles of marketing in the corporate sector. “But we all had an underground life,” he says, referring to a group of friends who, bound by their love for cinema, would write for the now defunct website passionforcinema.com. “That’s where I learnt to appreciate and write about world cinema,” he says. Through PFC, Neeraj met Anurag Kashyap.
Since then, cinema was a natural progression. “I thought I’d do film marketing, which would ensure I have a good pay package and I’d be doing something related to cinema,” he says.
Neeraj joined the digital marketing wing of UTV New Media and discovered it was no different from the corporate work he was doing earlier, and soon grew tired of it. “Anurag told me I should try working in films. I said I didn’t know anything about filmmaking. He said unless I give it a shot I wouldn’t know.”
He quit his job and later worked as an assistant director to Anurag Kashyap in Gangs of Wasseypur .
The sets were his film school. He was involved in background research, pre-production, marketing and the book on GoW . He then made the short films Shor (which was released theatrically as part of Kashyap’s S.H.O.R.T.S ) and Epiphany . “My parents, who had stopped talking to me for a while, came around after seeing Shor ,” he says, with a discernible smile.
GoW got him fascinated to Varanasi. “I didn’t know much about the city, since during GoW we’d leave for the sets, on the city’s outskirts, by 4 a.m. and return at 1 a.m. Yet, I was fascinated.” He roped in his friend and writer Varun Grover, who was more in tune with the pulse of the city, and together they worked on Masaan .
When screenplay writer Varun Grover finished the first draft, they went to Benaras to see if what was written resonated with the place. Plenty of audio interviews with the locals followed. Kashika, the local language, found its way into the film. With the help of casting director Mukesh Chhabra and his assistants, supporting actors were hired for the film from Benaras.
Masaan narrates the story of a boy from the lower strata of society, who goes to college by the day and returns to help at the cremation ghat, apart from two other narratives. “We can’t shoot at the cremation ghat; it’s not ethical. At a time, 30-40 bodies are burning and people are mourning. So we recreated that atmosphere on another virgin ghat,” says Neeraj.
Next, he is looking forward to the screening at Cannes, followed by a release in Europe and French-speaking pockets, thanks to international distributors. An Indian release will follow soon.
‘Un Certain Regard’ explained
Many Indian filmmakers often claim their films will be screened at Cannes Film Festival, without underlining if it is an official selection or a mere entry. The ‘Un Certain Regard’ is an official selection. It runs parallel to the competition for the Palme d'Or and was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. In the recent past, Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely was selected for screening in this section in 2012.
