You’ve made two feature films and both of them have won National Awards, the second one, Antaheen, in several categories including best film this year. What are the ingredients of an award-winning film?
I only make a film when I feel a tremendous urge to tell a story. And it is a spontaneous creative compulsion from the depth of my heart and mind. There is no formula. It’s as natural as wanting to hold your lover’s hand. It’s a desire.
After the golden age of Bengali cinema of the time of Ritwik Ghatak and Satyajit Ray there was a lull. Is there a conscious effort to bring it out of a rut by you and directors like Aparna Sen and Rituparno Ghosh?
I don’t think anyone consciously sets out to make an award-winning film. If you have commitment, honesty, integrity and passion I think that gets reflected in your craft. It’s not that good Bengali movies had totally disappeared. Maybe for a time Bengali commercial cinema was more in number or more visible, but even during this time there were great films being made.
Can you give an example of such a film, one which made an impact on you?
One of the films that really touched me was Buddhadeb Das Gupta’s Kaalpurush. I cried when I watched it. Some of the onscreen father-son moments made me miss my own father. It evoked me in me emotions of love, compassion and of course regret that I didn’t spend more time with him, doing little things that would make him happy. That movie captured my soul.
What was the compulsion behind telling the story in Antaheen?
A story can only be soul-capturing when it is real and springs from real emotions and is played out by real characters. I went through a period of intense loneliness. There was an urge for expression.
Judging by your films, you prefer linear narratives and realism to the abstract.
The medium through which you express and the manner in which you do it depends on the kind of person you are. For me, real moments from my experiences gather into sequences and the real characters from my interactions come together to give shape to my stories.
But only when there is that overwhelming need for expression?
Yes, I will never make a film for the sake of making a film. I will not make a film because it is expected of me. There was a two-year gap between my first film Anuranan and this one (Antaheen).
Can you explain your penchant for the letter ‘A’?