The joy of having your film screened in PIFF is different, opine directors

From Jyothi Venkatesh, Pune, India

‘If one gets a chance to screen their film on a platform like Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) to which the audience responds positively, then the joy is everlasting,’ said the directors, screenwriters, actors and actresses of the films in various categories screened at the festival today. The teams of movies including Tak-Tak, Thaen, Gott, COT and FUN’ ERAL voiced their opinions during an interactive program called ‘Candid Talks’ with Samar Nakhate, Artistic Director of PIFF held at NFAI at Law College Road.

Vishal Kudale and Ashish Kalariya, screenwriters of the film ‘Tak-Tak’, Abarnathi, Actress of Thaen, Shailendra Bagde, Director and Kiran Bagde, Producer of Gott, EV Ganeshbabu and Shyam, Director and Actor of COT and Vivek Dubey, Director, Ramesh Dighe, Producer and Actors including Aroh Velankar, Harshad Shinde and Siddesh Pujare of FUN’ERAL were present during the talks.

Speaking about his movie ‘Tak-Tak’, which is about Vishal, a school boy who wakes up to be trapped inside his own classroom only to discover a three consecutive day holiday that must force him to survive and break free, Vishal Kudale said, “Our protagonist struggles to get out after getting into trouble, but at the same time he learns lots of things through experiences. His journey through the closed four walls can be seen in this film.

Aroh Velankar, Vivek Dubey and Ramesh Dighe (R) in conversation with Samar Nakhate (L) from the film Fun’real at NFAI.

“Anish Gosavi, who plays the character of Vishal in the film has done a fabulous job and has given 80 to 90% of the scenes in a single take,” said Ashish Kalaria.

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“Every human being has two lives, one physical and the other in the mind. We wanted the audience to experience Vishal’s struggle to get out of the school classroom. The film was shown at PIFF yesterday,“ said Kudale.

Samar Nakhate then interacted with actress Abarnathi from the Tamil film ‘Thaen’, which is about Velu a beekeeper who lives in a hill range village of Nilgiri forest in Kurunjikudi. Poongodi from the neighbouring village meets Velu to fetch Kusuvan honey (medicine honey) to treat her sick father. Along the way she falls in love with Velu and gets married to him, but the Gods of Nature disapproves of their marriage.

Velu and Poongodi leading a happy married life are blessed with a baby girl, Malar. Once when Poongodi is out she faints and when Velu hears the news he immediately rushes and takes her to the hospital, which confirms that she is suffering from life threatening disease. The hard journey of the family to overcome the system and society is a love story which explores the darkness as it traverses through the unexplored human emotions and challenges the harshness of humanity.

Abarnathi, Actress from the Tamil film Thean in conversation with Samar Nakhate (L) at NFAI

“Through the film, we are trying to show the condition of the tribal citizens. Their lives have been dependent on nature for so many years as money, Aadhaar card and health facilities are yet to reach them. Many of these locals have problems because of the people who come from outside and destroy nature for their own selfish needs.  The movie speaks about dealing with these problems, which is very hard and painful.”

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Abarnathi said that while acting, she worked hard to show the relationship between Velu and Poongudi and her relationship with Malar.

Shailendra Bagde, Director of ‘Gott’ said, “I am originally from Vidarbha. In many places people laugh at our speech because of the accent, the words and the way we speak. Although our language is not pure, our culture and customs are rich and I turned towards the film industry to prove this. Through the story of the film Gott, we have shown the beliefs, legends and customs of the ‘Gond and Korku’ tribes.”

Kiran Bagde, the producer and actress of the film, said, “We are happy to promote this film and bring it to the audience.”

EV Ganeshbabu, Director and Actor of Tamil film ‘COT’ said, “The word Cot means a bed. The protagonist of the film is the bed that a family has been using for 300 years. This is our attempt to weave the story of some generation around a object, which has a life. We try to connect our present with the past and the future by thinking emotionally and not just thinking head on.”

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Shyam mentioned that the film stars Marathi actress Shrishti Dange in the lead role and the script was written by B. Lenin.

Screenwriter and producer Ramesh Dighe of FUN’ERAL while explaining the film said, “When a human being is born he cries but the whole world around him is happy. And when a human being dies, he is silent and the whole world around him cries. There were many occasions when a man goes to the funeral and prepares for it. This is where the story came from.”

Director Vivek Dubey said that the film offers a different perspective on death.

“The question of how to express that situation while acting came to me during a couple of scenes. At that time, I connected with the people and in a few minutes those feelings ‘clicked’, recalled actor Aroh Welankar.