Fight to the finish

After the CBFC refused to pass Shlok Sharma’s debut feature Haraamkhor, it has been cleared with a U/A certificate by the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal. The director speaks on the eve of the film’s release.

January 10, 2017 12:35 am | Updated 07:30 am IST

On November 24 last year, filmmaker Shlok Sharma received a phone call at approximately 4.30 p.m. He was in Goa, scheduled to speak the next day at the National Film Development Corporation’s Film Bazaar, an annual networking event for the film trade and the creative community. Ensconced at the Marriott hotel, overlooking a sun-glazed sea, Sharma felt that the tide in his life had, at last, turned for the better. Haraamkhor , a film that took him only 16 days to shoot but almost four years to bring to theatres, had finally been cleared for release.

For those who follow independent cinema keenly, Sharma was already a bit of a star by the time he started filming Haraamkhor . His award-winning short films, especially Tubelight Ka Chaand (2011), about a boy who falls in love with the moon, and Sujata (2013), about a girl who is sexually abused by her cousin, won him many admirers. A feature film was only a matter of time, a foregone conclusion. But then everything appeared to go wrong.

Haraamkhor arrived with much fanfare at the Mumbai Film Festival in 2015. Set in a Madhya Pradesh village (though shot in Gujarat), it stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a schoolmaster and Shweta Tripathi as a 14-year-old student. The two fall in love. Well-received at the festival, the obvious next step was a theatrical release. Sharma and producer Guneet Monga (of Sikhya Entertainment) took the film to the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). The board, however, refused to pass the film. “They recommended no cuts or anything,” says Sharma. “They just said they couldn’t pass it because of its theme.”

Wasn’t he inviting trouble by having a provocative title as well as plot? Sharma emphatically denies the charge. In fact, he says, the title isn’t used as an expletive at all. Instead, it is used endearingly, as a harmless cuss word, on the lines of ‘scoundrel’. The director is quick to state that nobody watching the film would admire or idolise Siddiqui’s character. “The intent was never to provoke or titillate.”

Very much possible if one is to go by his previous works. Sujata , while clearly outlining abuse, never descends to gratuitous imagery.

Is film mein sab hi haraamkhor hain (Everyone is a haraamkhor in the film),” says Sharma. “What I’ve tried to do is offer a new perspective by looking at the story through the eyes of the young girl and suggest that there might be another way of looking at such a story, about the reasons why such stories might happen.”

Another theme one might infer from his earlier work is that of innocence lost.

As a filmmaker, Sharma says, he wishes to uncover new emotional angles to stories and tell them from vantage points that have previously been hidden. “I can never shoot a film in a way that feels wrong or exploitative, to me. For instance, I can never film a rape scene.”

Sharma explains that what he really means is that he could never focus primarily on an act of violence or indignity, even though he might well show it. “Even in Haraamkhor, the love scene has been shot sensitively, from a distance.”

In the feature film, the 14-year-old Sandhya is played by (the then) 26-year-old Shweta Tripathi. Did Sharma ever consider casting an actual 14-year-old like in Sairat (2016)? “No, I did not. Maybe there are others who would do it. But I am not comfortable with the idea.” Sharma explains he’s averse to casting a child in a difficult role that she might not fully understand or be emotionally ready for. “Perhaps I’d have cast a 14-year-old if there hadn’t been a physical scene with Nawaz,” says Sharma.

Ironically, Haraamkhor has been cleared with a U/A certificate by the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, a statutory body that hears appeals against orders by the CBFC. It means anyone above the age of 12 can watch the film.

“The CBFC order took us by surprise because we set out to tell a simple story. If I had started out to create controversy, it would have made sense. But the story the film tells is commonplace. I took it from a newspaper clipping. It happens all the time.” In fact, he recalls that while shooting the film in Gujarat, a local, upon learning the plot of the film, informed Sharma that right in their neighbourhood a music teacher had recently married one of his students.

Has the struggle to get the film released taken its toll? Is there anger or bitterness? “No, there is none. I was always hopeful that the film would get released, and I toiled on,” he says. “I’ve learnt many things during this period. Perhaps, if I have to fight it out again,

I will take two years instead of four.”

During those days of uncertainty, when Haraamkhor wasn’t yet assured of a release, Sharma decided to begin his next project, a feature film called Zoo, shot entirely on an iPhone 6S Plus — the first Indian film shot this way. “We wanted to shoot on a tight budget, and also found that we could shoot more easily without attracting attention.” Sharma says the film was shot only after extensive testing, including projecting footage on a large screen to gauge quality. “Most importantly, my DoP agreed to shoot it this way. If he had declined, I’d obviously have had to shoot it conventionally.”

Sharma’s story has seen many curious beginnings: receiving his name, Shlok, from Gulzar, as his father was the lyricist’s yoga instructor; watching the film Maachis (1996) when he was 10, and being consumed by a desire to do nothing else but make movies. And at 15, requesting Gulzar to help him find work in the movies, but being turned down because he was too young. Studying only till class XII because his only calling was to make movies. Being similarly turned down by Vishal Bhardwaj, who eventually relented and brought him on as an assistant on The Blue Umbrella (2005), and warned that he’d be fired if he wasn’t any good. Earning a reputation as a rising star as one of Anurag Kashyap’s many protégés: assisting him on No Smoking (2006), Dev D (2009), and later a second unit director for Gangs of Wasseypur (2012). Directing a number of excellent short films, and winning an award. All this to watch his first film get stalled.

Perhaps, his story will truly begin on January 13, when Haraamkhor arrives in the theatres.

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