While India’s largest film industry continues to churn out three-hour long movies, a growing number of filmmakers in the city are opting to make short films with compelling stories. Devashish Makhija is one such filmmaker, who has received much applause for his directorial projects, El’ayichi , Agli Baar , and Rahim Murge Pe Mat Ro .
Makhija’s latest film, titled Tandav , has actor Manoj Bajpayee in the lead role playing a head police constable named Tambe. He finds himself in the middle of a particularly difficult situation that pushes him to the edge. Tandav has been produced by muvizz.com, and will be available for free viewing there as well as on YouTube.
Bollywood often depicts cops either as downright corrupt and inefficient, or as larger-than-life heroes. Makhija’s focus, he says, is more on Tambe as a father than as a cop.
“The quandary he finds himself in, that leads to his entire life going out of whack, has everything to do with his little girl,” explains Makhija. “It’s just that making him a policeman put the character in a difficult place because the pressures of social responsibility on a man of uniform are always amplified. And I like putting my characters in difficult places. I like testing their endurance.”
The film is only 11-minutes long. Such a short time span can be a challenge to tell a gripping story. Besides that, Bollywood actors are known to be concerned about the amount of screen time they get in a movie. How did Makhija manage to convince someone of Bajpayee’s stature to act in a short film? “That man has a wolf-like hunger for good work that will push him into territories he has not explored before as an artiste,” says the director. “It is a very rare quality in this industry. It took me by surprise when I first saw it in him. He really wanted to make something with me,” says Makhija, who also wrote the script for Tandav .
This film marks the acting debut of Anvita Dutt, who worked as a writer on Queen .
It also features Vibha Deshpande of Harishchandrachi Factory fame as Tambe’s wife. His fellow constables are played by Suhas Sirsat, Ashish Warang, Abhishek Banerjee and Anand Alkunte. Tandav was shot in three days. The first shoot took place amidst the chaos of the final day of Ganpati Visarjan, at Shivaji Park in Dadar and Lower Parel. The rest of the film was shot a month later. Post-production then took another two months.
“For a short film where the resources are minimal, it is imperative to plan as much as possible so that time can be saved on shoot,” says Makhija, whose short film boasts of a strong technical team. Tandav was shot by Swapnil Sonawane, the Director of Photography of Angry Indian Goddesses . The editing has been done by Shweta Venkat Mathew, who earlier edited Gangs of Wasseypur . The sound designer is Kaamod Kharade, who won a National Award for Ishqiya , and the costumes have been designed by Sachin Lovalekar, who also worked on the film Court . The music in the film is by Udyan Sagar a.k.a. Nucleya.
Makhija says, “Making Tandav was satisfying in a way that directing for television or advertising can never be for me, because they come with the defined parameters. There are pre-decided boundaries the filmmaker cannot overstep. But with short films, I have no such limitations. The only challenge here, if we must use the word, is how to not fail myself.”
He and Bajpayee are also hoping to work on a full-length feature film set in the same milieu as Tandav . Tandav releases on February 5.
The author is a freelance writer who tweets: @chintan_connect
