Thursday 7 June 2018

Interview with filmmaker Arjun Rai


Paani will be screening at the Straight Jacket Guerrilla Film Festival

*How did you get into making films?
When I was a kid my father use to ask me, while watching a film, that 'can you count how many cameras are used in this scene?’ so I started counting, at first for each shot I use to count one camera later on I came to know that one camera takes different shots in different time and at the edit all shots are joined to form a scene and that’s how the film is being made. Actually by that process unknowingly I was learning the shot division at the age of 7, And that’s how a habit is developed to watch a film with different perspective (counting cameras). Second thing my father gave me a good habit of reading books right from my childhood which helped me to develop my imagination. When grew up I analyse myself that I can’t do anything else than the filmmaking.

*What inspired you to make your movie?
One day I was reading a news on my mobile app and there is Video link of the news as well, the news was about a farmer suicide and his age was just 26, his wife was 6 month pregnant, it was his first child to be born, that particular news hit my heart and brain, I started to research about drought and  reasons of Farmer Suicide, I visited  that Farmer’s  house, met his family and villagers, my whole journey became an experience, than I wrote the script.

*How has your style evolved?
It was a difficult task for me to decide which pattern I should go with, because there are few other films about the same subject so if I make film in a normal way than it will be same like others, so I decided to keep it very realistic and the shot division ratio I kept minimum.

*Tell us any strange or funny stories while making the film?
There are two incidents
We shot this film around average temperature of 48 degree Celsius, One day we were shooting outdoor near the temple, suddenly there is a fire break in the farm waste and with in no time it was a big fire,my whole team became firefighter at that time and by then other villagers also joined, it took 2 hours to control the fire, all the villagers thanked us for saving the village because if we would have not taken the action immediately than there might be a chance that whole village might have burnt and it was very interior fire brigade would take 2hours to come.
2nd while shooting a scene where sister’s  character have to slap the hero but shot was not coming out good because she was scared to hit, but hero told her not to worry just hit, and after that it was 9 takes and when the final take was ok the girl starts crying that she hit him so hard and when we all saw hero’s face it was red at one side.

*The Misrule Film Movement & Pink8 manifesto bring what to mind?
Misrule and pink8 gives you a thought of freedom to make a film. You have camera, you have imagination, take out the performance from the non actors, do the edit and if you don’t  know the edit learn it, And reach out to the people with your film. Follow the process again and again.

*What can we expect from your next film?
In my next film there will be some experiment with the storyline of Mental Disorders for which I am researching from last one year.