Hip Hop and the Kerala connect

Vi segnalo l'articolo Hip Hop and the Kerala connect: How a new breed of rappers is using the genre to speak of our reality, pubblicato lo scorso 23 dicembre da Film Companion:

'June was a particularly vulnerable time for everyone due to the COVID-19 lockdown, but Neeraj Madhav decided to do something about it - he released the catchy single Panipaali. A newbie to the hip hop scene, Neeraj rapped about boredom, playing ludo, craving for someone who'd sing him to sleep. The lyrics were relatable, and the beats addictive. (...)

The hip hop scene in Kerala has been around since the 90s. (...) In 2009, Rjv Ernesto, also known as Pakarcha Vyadhi formed Street Academics, the first hip hop collective in Kerala. He mooted an idea to form a hip hop group for spoken word poetry and making pause tapes, critical for the evolution of rap. The group initially rapped over beats, and after rapper Azuran joined them, they began to develop underground musical rap. The group also became more flexible with the addition of new members - currently it has six members. (...) Here are some songs you could catch up on. (...)

Chatha Kaakka - Street Academics

Street Academic's first EP had six songs, Chatha Kaakka being the most popular even to this day. CK literally translates to a dead crow, which is a commentary on society's treatment of people who are less privileged. (...) The song is observational and experiential, but if one digs deeper, it's also about the life of those underprivileged. (...)

Voice of the Voiceless - Vedan

Vedan doesn't mince words. In his first single Voice of the Voiceless, he's truthful about the discrimination he and others have faced because of their colour and caste. (...) The music lifts the rage of the rap. The song showcases the anger on everyone who has influenced this discrimination towards those who are different.

Lokam Mayakathilo e Kariveppila Akkiyo - Fejo

A native of Kochi, Fejo has been rapping since 2009. His collaboration with contemporaries Achayan and Blesslee resulted in Lokam Mayakathilo. (...) Kariveppila Akkiyo is another favourite of Fejo. The title literally translates to 'Did you make me a curry leaf?'. (...)

Avastha - ThirumaLi

ThirumaLi is a 25 year old rapper from Kottayam and has been rapping since 2013. His song Avastha is an ironic take on the times we live in - moral policing, social media validation and educated fools. (...)

Aliya - Kaanthari

Kaanthari's second single Aliya is a coming-of-age song about self-awareness in a flawed society. While having a discussion with friends, a man comments - (...) (girls who drink are of loose morals), and that flusters Aliya. She looks into herself and the society's demeanour towards young women for their choices. (...)

Jaagratha - Thakazhi (...)

This is Thakazhi's first single, released during the early days of quarantine with a message of hope and awareness about the virus. (...)

Ennilerinju - RZee e Sithara

Ennilerinju from Vineeth Sreenivasan's Jacobinte Swargarajyam is composed by Shaan Rahman. Sung by RZee and Sithara, the song is refreshing and fast paced. (...)

Minni - V3K e ThirumaLi

V3K is an electronic music composer and collaborated with ThirumaLi for Minni, one of the tracks from his latest EP. He fuses three unusual genres - folk, electronic and rap with ease. (...)

Kalippava - 2XB

2XB is one of the rappers from Malabar Hip Hop Movement, which aims to promote the culture in Northern Kerala. Kalippava, his second single is about (...) victims of police brutality over the world. 2XB comments on the system, and also raps effortlessly in Tamil'.

River to River Florence Indian Film Festival 2020

La 20esima edizione del River to River Florence Indian Film Festival si è svolta on line dal 3 all'8 dicembre 2020. Fra i titoli in cartellone, segnalo Cargo, l'originalissima pellicola di fantascienza diretta da Arati Kadav. Il leggendario Amitabh Bachchan ha dedicato all'evento un messaggio video, imitato da Deepa Mehta e da Kabir Bedi. Ospiti in collegamento, fra gli altri, Anurag Kashyap, Rajat Kapoor e Arati Kadav.

Su Airbnb si può affittare la villa di una superstar di Bollywood

Vi segnalo l'articolo Su Airbnb si può affittare la villa di una superstar di Bollywood, di Federica Maccotta, pubblicato lo scorso 18 novembre dall'edizione italiana di Wired:

'Bollywood incontra, per la prima volta, Airbnb. Il portale per gli affitti brevi lancia un’iniziativa per celebrare l’amore in pura atmosfera bollywoodiana, vale a dire del coloratissimo cinema indiano. Una coppia di cittadini indiani potrà infatti, la sera del 13 febbraio 2021, soggiornare nella villa di Delhi della star Shah Rukh Khan e di sua moglie, la celebre interior designer Gauri Khan. La coppia vip debutta, infatti, come host su Airbnb mettendo a disposizione per una sera la casa di famiglia nel verdeggiante quartiere di Panchsheel Park, nella parte sud di Delhi. La location è, per i fanatici del settore, una chicca. Oltre a essere curata nel design e negli arredi, la magione raccoglie ricordi e oggetti frutto dei numerosi viaggi fatti da Shah Rukh e Gauri, una collezione d’arte, fotografie di famiglia, negativi originali di film, lettere d’amore, arazzi colorati e lampadari scintillanti. E non manca (...) un ampio giardino ricco di fiori. Oltre a godere della bellezza della villa (per candidarsi online e fino al 30 novembre, bisogna essere residenti in India), i fortunati ospiti di Gauri e Shah Rukh Khan possono scoprire un itinerario curato dalla padrona di casa, godere di una cena a casa e fare una maratona dei film preferiti di Shah Rukh Khan e dei suoi più grandi successi'. 

Festa del Cinema di Roma 2020

La 15esima edizione della Festa del Cinema di Roma si è svolta a dal 15 al 25 ottobre 2020. In cartellone una ricca retrospettiva dedicata a Satyajit Ray, con la proiezione di ben quindici pellicole.

Festivaletteratura 2020

 

La 24esima edizione del Festivaletteratura si è svolta a Mantova dal 9 al 13 settembre 2020. Fra gli ospiti, anche la scrittrice Tishani Doshi, a cui la manifestazione ha chiesto un commento:

'Da danzatrice, la prima cosa che faccio prima di entrare in teatro per le prove è piegarmi a toccare il pavimento prima di varcare la porta di legno. È un gesto tradizionale. Per chiedere la benedizione della terra, che ci dà energia, che ci radica. Ma è anche una pausa. Per riconoscere una soglia. Per dire “mi muovo da uno spazio a un altro”. Lascio il mondo esterno per entrare nel mondo interno del teatro. Lascio fuori le preoccupazioni e le ambasce del mondo esterno in modo che in questo spazio interno del teatro il mio corpo possa fare il duro lavoro che deve fare. Posso provare a creare della magia.

Le soglie sono spazi di confine. Per un libro, questo spazio è la copertina. Forse non la si tocca per avere una benedizione, o non la si bacia con amore, ma non appena si gira la copertina e si legge la prima pagina si entra in un altro mondo, separato da quello che sta fuori. Questo mondo del libro è costituito unicamente da parole e, a volte, anche immagini, ma il paesaggio e le avventure sono costruite solo di parole. Parola dopo parola, frase dopo frase. Come i mattoni e la malta che servono per costruire una casa. Il Lettore, come Alice nel paese delle meraviglie, potrebbe cadere nella tana del Bianconiglio e perdersi, potrebbe mangiare qualcosa che lo rende molto grande o molto piccolo, potrebbe essere assorbito da uno stato surreale di febbre o di apatia o di impazienza, perché un libro sospende il tempo, e quando si è nel mondo del libro si fluttua in un altro universo, che non è creato da noi.

Leggere un libro è, in realtà, una delle comunioni più private che esistano. Il lettore e l’autore non hanno bisogno di incontrarsi per condividerlo. Una delle cose più liberatorie della lettura è che si ha il diritto di immaginare le parole di qualcun altro come si vuole, senza interferenze, senza spiegazioni. Quindi perché i festival letterari cercano di farci conoscere quando, onestamente, c’è il pericolo di restare delusi? Perché rischiare?

Un festival come quello di Mantova, per me, è una grande soglia. Un grande territorio di confine che crea un’interfaccia tra lettori e scrittori, che non si limita alle presentazioni, ma che lascia spazio a qualsiasi tipo di conversazione. Uno scrittore scrive una storia, ma un lettore apporta la sua. Veniamo cambiati dalle storie degli altri. Un festival, come una biblioteca, può facilitare ciò che è misterioso. Ciò che non può essere pianificato. La scoperta del libro che abbiamo bisogno di leggere, ma di cui non sapevamo il titolo, o di cui non sospettavamo neanche l’esistenza, ma che ci ha attirato e che non abbiamo potuto fare a meno di prendere in mano. Oppure ci imbattiamo in un evento di un poeta che non avevamo mai sentito, ma che con le sue parole sblocca improvvisamente qualcosa dentro di noi. È il posto in cui capita di intrattenere una conversazione con una persona che ci racconta che ha settantadue anni e che legge un libro quasi ogni giorno da quando ne aveva sei, e che raramente ha l’impressione di imbattersi in qualcosa di nuovo, ma che nel tuo libro è rimasta sorpresa nell’incontrare un’eroina che era vera e complicata e che parlava direttamente a lei. O potrebbe essere semplicemente per dire: “Hai assaggiato i tortelli amari? Sono molto buoni”.

La mia prima mattina a Mantova sono andata a Palazzo Ducale e ho scoperto che basta una sola persona della famiglia per far crollare l’intero castello di carte (Davvero, Vincenzo, come hai potuto?). Ho visto il furgone poetico del festival in Piazza Sordello, che suonava il clacson, annunciando la sua “merce”, e non ho potuto fare a meno di pensare alle sirene che sentiamo tutti dall’inizio di quest’anno, le sirene delle ambulanze e dei camion della disinfestazione che diffondono gli annunci pubblici. Delle televisioni che ci urlano contro cattive notizie, e di come queste risuonino in ogni stanza immaginaria della nostra testa. E di come un festival come quello di Mantova cerchi davvero di riempirci di suoni diversi. Il suono della poesia, delle idee, del racconto, perché anche la letteratura è una sirena gentile. Può essere una canzone. Può essere un avvertimento. Può allontanarci dal mondo e permetterci di rimanere sospesi in uno spazio di creatività e magia e trasformazione, e può forse fornirci qualche indicazione su come ricreare il mondo che ci aspetta là fuori.

L’edizione 2020 del Festivaletteratura è forse meno esuberante di quelle degli anni scorsi, meno frenetica, più misurata. Ma chi di noi è qui dovrebbe ricordarla come l’edizione di un festival di meraviglia e di speranza. Non dovremmo dimenticare che solo qualche mese fa la Lombardia era la regione italiana più colpita dal Covid. Non dovremmo dimenticare quelle sirene. Siamo qui insieme, e questo di per sé è già un atto di commemorazione, un atto di sopravvivenza. È anche un enorme atto d’amore. A tutta la squadra di Festivaletteratura va un grande grazie per aver reso possibile questa soglia. Credetemi, il mondo ci guarda e si meraviglia. Che fortuna essere qui a sentire la sirena della poesia a Mantova, e a condividerla con gli altri'.

Black Eyed Peas: Action

Il video di Action, il nuovo brano dei Black Eyed Peas, si ispira al cinema indiano, ed offre alcune sequenze - rivedute - di pellicole celebri: Maryada Ramanna (S.S. Rajamouli), Enthiran (S. Shankar), Aambala (Sundar C.), Singham (Rohit Shetty) - oltre al film svedese Kops. Nel comunicato stampa si legge: "The Black Eyed Peas have been inspired by Indian culture from the beginning of our career. From Asha Bhosle to A.R. Rahman, Indian music has influenced our songs on more than one occasion. This video for ACTION shows our LOVE and appreciation for BOLLYWOOD and the imagination and awesomeness it brings to the screen. Thank you INDIA & BOLLYWOOD!!!".

Fahadh Faasil: Make your directors fall in love with you

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa dal talentuosissimo Fahadh Faasil ad Anupama Chopra e a Baradwaj Rangan, pubblicata ieri da Film Companion. Make your directors fall in love with you; you'll never run out of content: Fahadh Faasil:

'AC: It has taken us eight months to get you here.

I think it's because I feel incomplete about my films. I don't know when the right time to talk about them is. I usually talk about them only after a year when I have actually realised what I tried to do and what I achieved. When we start shooting I think, 'Is this how it is supposed to be?', 'Is this right?' or 'Is this how it is in the script?'. And after release, I'm thinking 'Did I get it right?' I always go through that cycle in my head for all my films and that's why I'm always absent from promotions.

AC: You just shot See you soon with Mahesh Narayanan. And you mentioned that this is not a feature film and it is kind of an experiment. 

I met Mahesh 10 years ago when I moved to Kochi. When we eventually decided to do Take off, we knew it wasn't the first film we wanted to do together. But I had to be there for him. That is how Take off, and then Malik happened and then we decided to do an even bigger film and then the lockdown happened. Then, he came up with this idea that we can eventually redesign a film on the editing table. He said he needed three actors who need not be together, it could happen over phone and video and things like that. I thought it was crazy but I did a test shoot for a day and told him to capture the portions with the other actors. (...) When he came back with a rough edit, I knew I wanted to be part of the film. I told him to not worry about the theatrical release or money and to just shoot it.

BR: When Irrfan Khan passed away, you wrote a deeply moving note where you said 'I owe my acting career to him. I don't think I would have come this far in my career had I not picked up that DVD and watched that film'. Which DVD was it and what time in your life were you in when you watched that film and how did it help your acting?

It's a film directed by Naseeruddin Shah called Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota. I saw it in 2005 and it was my third year in America. That was the first time I saw Irrfan on screen and he didn't look like an actor to me. I couldn't stop looking at him, even when other actors came on screen. He looked so graceful. I kept looking at his feet to check whether his feet were on the floor, he seemed to be always floating. No one has made that kind of an impression on me. (...)

AC: In the few interviews you have given, you've mentioned that you don't prep for a role. What is the Fahadh Faasil process? (...)

I think my prep is to costantly interact with my writer and director and DOP on the sets. I never finish my films on schedule because, for me, the filming process takes a lot of time. (...) The prep I do is that I keep interacting. I never stop questioning. (...) I might have a one-liner. Most of the time, we have the climax. We know this is how we want to conclude (...) and that changes like five days into the shoot. I think the drive to shoot is to achieve what we initially thought or the fire we had for the initial idea. So, once we capture that, then that's when things start growing. It's difficult but it is very interesting and I love it. (...) I rarely walk in to sets prepared. The moment I have to prepare, I think I will collapse. When I work in Tamil, the biggest problem is that I don't think in Tamil. I go there and read the script and then translate it into my language and then learn the lines. That process is not easy for me. I want to do a Tamil or Hindi film and speak in Malayalam (laughs).

AC: Is it true that when you shot Take off with Parvathy, you asked her how her character's signature would be? How does a detail like that affect what you are doing? (...)

What fascinated me was that after she read the script, she was talking like Sameera, thinking like Sameera, and we were on sets and I was not able to get it right. So, I tried talking to her and at that time she was fiddling with a pen and then I told her to just sign Sameera, and the way she signed was very vulnerable. (...) Something about it looked vulnerable to me and that is where I picked it from. (...) These are actually very small things that nobody really notices. (...)

AC: Is it true that you take two days to get into character and you request your director to reshoot the first two days later?

Yeah. My first two days are exercise. I never get them right. (...) All my films we have actually gone back and shot the first two days. (...)

AC: Is acting stressful for you or do you find joy in it? And, how do you deal with films that don't do well?

I believe I have become a better human being once I started acting and started taking it seriously, because that is when I started thinking about others. When a film goes wrong, what actually goes wrong is your thought process and what you have been thinking for the last two or three years. (...) That is very difficult to accept for me. I actually get into a defensive mode and I try to explain, 'This is what I tried'. (...) Because I was wrong, the film went wrong and I usually accept that. But that phase is very difficult for me. I usually take time to come out of it. I come out of it when I find something else to be excited about.

BR: [Thiagarajan] Kumararaja said that you knew only three Tamil words and he was completely amazed that you did the dubbing for the film with all emotions intact. He spoke about it as if he had almost sighted a UFO. How do you do that, especially in a language you don't know?

I have to give it to Kumar. I was very sceptical about it. I wanted to do a film with Kumar, but I wanted it to be in Malayalam, to be honest. I actually went to Kumar five years ago, even before he started thinking about Super Deluxe, and told him 'Let's do a film in Malayalam', and I got him all the way to Kochi, but it didn't work out and he went back to Chennai. Then, he called me for Super Deluxe. I was very sceptical, because if you do this film with a person who can think and speak in Tamil, you can do wonders with the character, so I kept pushing him to do it with another actor, but he was adamant and kept saying that it was just language. One thing I realised when I was doing the film is that I started speaking in Tamil. If I spend time there, I'll get used to the language, that is what I realised. The thing about Tamil is that it is a very beautiful language and to learn it by rote is very easy. It's like learning a song. (...)

AC: Which role took the most out of you?

All the roles. (...) It is amazing to get people to react to your emotions or smile at you. And I discovered this much later in my life. I was not ready to be an actor or anything, and I am a person who tasted success much too late in my career and once I tasted it, the entire connection became very beautiful. So, for me, it is very important to feel for the character and the story. I need to believe that this is something that could happen or that has happened and I need to feel the connection to that story or plot.

BR: Your father launched you, things didn't work out, you took a break of eight years and came back. What was your frame of mind at that point?

After my first film didn't do well and I decided to go to the US, I had this conversation with my father. My father introduced Mohanlal. So when I spoke to him, he told me that I have an acting rhythm and that if I was actually planning to take up acting, I should do it in a way that it is happening from my stomach and not from my brain, and that was a very interesting advice. It is about how you see things and how you want to see things. So, I want to feel for the character and then emote. (...) I turned 19 during the shoot. To be honest, if that film had worked, I don't think I would have come this far. I would have been a star for 10 years and then I don't know what would have happened. Because the film didn't work, at least I am trying to be an actor, and that makes a huge difference.

AC: Fahadh, I loved the fact that Nazriya [Nazim, moglie di Fahadh] proposed to you on the sets of Bangalore Days. Please tell us that story.

Yeah, there is another side to it, but okay (laughs). It was new for me to see a girl that wasn't excited about meeting Fahadh Faasil. I had to do things to get her attention and I think I fell in love with that. I would walk into sets and the first thing I would want to see is if she was looking at me. So, I took initiative but she asked me out because she knew that I didn't have the guts to ask her. The two good things that I did after coming into cinema is getting married to an actress and starting a production house. (...)

AC: Now that you have gone to Tamil, would you be interested in Hindi, perhaps?

For me, the fact that my Malayalam films are watched in Mumbai, and that I get these messages and beautiful calls from people in the same industry is itself a big thing. (...) None of my films are made into any other language, because they are very rooted. My cinema is here. I would love to interact with Meghna Gulzar and Zoya Akhtar. There are so many brilliant directors that I'd love to work with, and there are so many films that are so good. If you ask me, Piku was the best film to have released in the last decade. I absolutely love it, the performances and the way it is made. (...)

BR: Speaking of Kumararaja, did he actually make you do 200 takes?

That's his average. With me, it has gone to 500-550 shots and what is interesting is I know I would have done around 60-65 takes for him and he would come and say that 'In the 17th take the look was perfect but in the 12th take, I liked the rendering, but as a whole I liked the 35th take'.'

Anurag Kashyap talks about his fight with KJo, meeting with SRK

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Anurag Kashyap a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata lo scorso 12 giugno da Mid-Day. Il testo include il video dell'intervista integrale. Anurag Kashyap talks about his fight with KJo, meeting with SRK:

'The first time ever that filmmaker Imtiaz Ali saw what a portfolio looked like (...) was that of an actor called Anurag Kashyap. Back then, Ali was in college in Delhi, helping out a local TV serial crew, when Kashyap approached him with his portfolio. "It was 1992. (...) I had just discovered theatre, and was told that you need to get pictures clicked, if you want work. I did, after collecting Rs 3000, which was a big sum then. And I started doing a lot of acting on stage, and I did some films. (...) Also, (...) Imtiaz (...) was my co-star. (...) We don't talk about it. Imtiaz will kill me. (...) The good thing about being a bad actor is you know how to extract great performances," Kashyap tells me later. Which in his case, I'm told, notoriously involves hardly ever saying "action" or "cut" on set. Often, no lines for actors to mug up, let alone extensive rehearsals, before shoot. It's a process only the best can survive. Ali, of course, played the '93 Bombay bomb blast accused Yakub Memon in Kashyap's first release, Black Friday 2007. He played a bigger role in his life, if you consider that Kashyap used to shack up at Ali's place while the latter was doing a post-grad course at Mumbai's Xavier Institute of Communications XIC.

This is also how Kashyap first met his key associate, Vikramaditya Motwane. (...) "I couldn't get into XIC, and was living in Imtiaz's room. Aarti Bajaj, my first wife and permanent editor for both mine and Imtiaz's films, was a year junior. Vikramaditya Motwane was Aarti's classmate. That's how we knew each other. But we really became friends during the shoot of [Deepa Mehta's] Water. Vikram was an assistant, and I was writing dialogues. The shoot got stalled [due to protests], and we spent a lot of time in Benares. Thereafter, I kept meeting him because he was first assistant director AD to Vishal Bhardwaj in his first film called Barf, before Maqbool - that never got made. (...) That was sometime around 2000. Vikram was one of the sound designers on Paanch. And because I was scared of shooting songs, and he had been Sanjay Leela Bhansali's assistant, I asked him to direct the songs. He had two credits in the film - sound designer, and director of songs. It was a first for many people - Bosco-Caesar as choreographer, (...) Aarti Bajaj as editor. Abbas Tyrewala was the lyricist in the film and Vishal Bhardwaj did the music. Both of them, Vikram, I and others, used to hang out together."

"Then, there was Sriram Raghavan (...) and a whole lot of others - part of another gang. Even Tigmanshu Dhulia, Irrfan and others were all close to my brother [Abhinav]. That was the third gang. I was the centre-point, everywhere. And then I had another friends' circle, with (...) Zoya Akhtar and the lot. When I wrote a script, I had way too many boards to bounce off. And that's what we did! I was a huge fan of Sriram Raghavan's Raman Raghav [a docu-drama on a serial killer that Kashyap remade in 2016]. (...) Then a strange thing happened, with a script I wrote officially, for the first time (...) - with Kamal Swaroop Om Dar-B-Dar as director. For that film, I found an actor I was a fan of from Delhi stage, called Manoj Bajpayee. I put the film together. But it never happened. Nobody was showing faith in Manoj. He was going through a hard time and doing Ram Gopal Varma's Daud, which is when Ramuji said he wanted to make a film [Satya] with Manoj. And asked if he knew of a writer for it. Without having seen any of my written works, Manoj took me to Ram Gopal Varma." (...)

But that he's also a liberal raconteur: "Oh, one of my favourite stories is about Mahesh Bhatt. He happened to me, right before Ram Gopal Varma. He got me to write films. And Mukesh Bhatt [his brother, and producer] was very miserly with money. I was struggling for rent. Pooja Bhatt was the nicest and kindest; I would tell her to talk to her dad. Then I just walked up to [Mahesh] Bhatt saab once and said that I'd rather be a carpenter than work in his office. With his brother [Mukesh] around, he didn't say a word. When I was leaving, he came down, said, - Don't ever change. - And he put Rs 10,000 in my hand. That was big money in 1994-1995." Years later, at a post-screening event in a film festival abroad, Kashyap was narrating the first part of the story above. He heard a voice from the audience. (...) "Bhatt saab was sitting in the crowd. I got so emotional. I have had funny incidents like these." (...) "There was a time when Mukul Anand was making Trimurti 1995. I wanted to work with him as an assistant. I would call his house land-line. Every call was a rupee gone. And he was always busy. Third time I said, - (...) [This is producer Subhash Ghai, tell him not to show up on the sets from tomorrow], - and hung up. Now when somebody trolls me on social media, I just remember my time!" 

There is then the moment he randomly landed up at Shah Rukh Khan's bungalow Mannat he mistakenly calls it Jannat on Bandstand: "I was hungry and I walked into his house, using our college connection [both went to Hansraj in Delhi]. I remember him feeding me. He only knew how to make omelette." And then, there are the more famous spats: (...) "Karan Johar gave an interview calling me a psychopath. Till then we had not met. I called him a fat kid, who still thinks he is in school. (...) I also said something about Anil Kapoor in the interview that became a headline. But people always knew I was childlike." (...) He's gone to the extent of rescuing actor Rajpal Yadav from Andheri railway station, since he was returning to his hometown, having given up. That's when, Kashyap says, he first met the nondescript Nawazuddin Siddiqui, standing next to Yadav. (...) Scorsese, (...) after having watched GoW, invited him to be on the jury of the Marrakech film festival. Before Scorsese walked in, Kashyap was smoking outside with the Oscar winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, without knowing it was Sorrentino! Both were nervously puffing away. (...) Or this other time, Kashyap was in the same room as Francis Ford Coppola, "Sophia Coppola, his daughter, was with him. He is old. I kept staring at him for so long that he made me sit on his lap and said, now talk to me!".'

The short-lived glory of Satyajit Ray's Sci-Fi Cine Club

[Archivio] Ma com'è che mi era sfuggito questo incredibile articolo di Sankhayan Ghosh? Pubblicato il 9 maggio 2018 da Film Companion, rivela un aspetto segreto e sorprendente (almeno per me) di Satyajit Ray, maestro del neorealismo indiano: il suo amore per la fantascienza. The short-lived glory of Satyajit Ray's Sci-Fi Cine Club:

'The SF Cine Club in Calcutta began its journey with much fanfare. The kind of attention unimaginable for a film club in India, let alone one that called itself 'a club of devotees of Science-fiction and Fantasy films'. Walt Disney, from Disney Land, California, wrote a congratulatory letter; the Prime Minister and President sent encouraging messages; sci-fi literary legends like Arthur C. Clarke (...) and Ray Bradbury (...) sent their best wishes. The Press Trust of India carried a report, it was in the city's leading papers and the news segment in the radio the next morning. In the inauguration ceremony, on 26 January, 1966, people queued up in the portico of the Academy of Fine Arts, to collect their membership cards - at an annual membership of Rs 6. (...)

Brochures and souvenirs were handed out. All design-related work, from the hand-drawn insignia of the club, to conceptualising the cover design of the brochure, to selecting the type of font, was done by Satyajit Ray, whose feted masterpieces (...) had by then established him as one of the greatest filmmakers in the world, and who was a life-long fan of science-fiction and fantasy. Some of the first stories Ray ever wrote were science-fiction. (...) Ray (...) was the President of the SF Cine Club. "A science-fiction addict for close to thirty years," he wrote in the brochure, "the SF Cine Club may very well be one of the first of its kind - here or abroad". It was the same year that Ray went to Hollywood to pitch his sci-fi script, the ill-fated The Alien. But that's another story, a comprehensive account of which is given in Travails with the Alien by Satyajit Ray: The Film that was never made and other Adventures with Science Fiction, the new book by HarperCollins India - which also features previously unpublished memorabilia of the SF Cine Club. (...) Ray, not new to the workings of a film club (he had co-founded the first film society of independent India in 1947), curated the screenings. (...) 

The film club was the product of the efforts of a group of sci-fi crusaders in Bengal in the '60s. It was led by Adrish Bardhan, its secretary, who had approached Ray with the idea. Bengali sci-fi writer Premendra Mitra was the Vice President. Bardhan (...) had been running Aschorjo, the little magazine dedicated to Bengali sci-fi by local authors, from a room in his ancestral house on 97/1 Serpentine Lane (which would also double as the office for the cine club) since 1963. Ray was the magazine's chief patron and contributor, and together they started producing sci-fi radio plays. (...) Bardhan, in the editorial of 1966 February issue of Aschorjo, wrote, "A Monthly magazine, radio and cinema: these 3 paths now will forge the victory of sci-fi." The issue carried an extensive coverage of the inaugural ceremony; a detailed synopsis of the SF Cine Club's next screening would appear in the last section of Aschorjo - which has been archived by the members of Kalpabiswa - a Bengali sci-fi/fantasy webzine. Many of the stories of the cine club are recounted by Ranen Ghosh, an acolyte of Bardhan, in a Norwegian journal about the sci-fi 'movement' in Bengal, that was published last year. He was an integral part of three bengali sci-fi magazines, which came one after the other, Aschorjo, Bishmoy and Fantastic. Ghosh often wrote stories with multiple aliases, taking names of family members. He is one of the few active members of the cine club who is alive. 

How did the seemingly successful SF Cine Club lose its steam so abruptly, and shut down in 1969, 3 years after it had started? Ray got busier. (...) And Bardhan had his own battles to fight - Aschorjo was in financial trouble, and his wife fell sick. "I think Ray also lost interest in it after a point. Otherwise, he would have managed to keep it running," says Ghosh. The audience, he says, also started dwindling. Many members who weren't accustomed to watching English-language films, wouldn't be able to grasp the films. (...) The problems were identified, discussed in the meetings (which Ray didn't have the time to attend), but never addressed'. 

A proposito del volume Travails with the Alien, nel sito di HarperCollins Publishers si legge: 

'Satyajit Ray was a master of science fiction writing. Through his Professor Shonku stories and other fiction and non-fiction pieces, he explored the genre from various angles. In the 1960s, Ray wrote a screenplay for what would have been the first-of-its-kind sci-fi film to be made in India. It was called The Alien and was based on his own short story "Bonkubabur Bandhu". On being prompted by Arthur C. Clarke, who found the screenplay promising, Ray sent the script to Columbia Pictures in Hollywood, who agreed to back it, and Peter Sellers was approached to play a prominent role. Then started the "Ordeals of the Alien" as Ray calls it, as even after a series of trips to the US, UK and France, the film was never made, and more shockingly, some fifteen years later, Ray watched Steven Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind and later E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, and realized these bore uncanny resemblances to his script The Alien, including the way the ET was designed! A slice of hitherto undocumented cinema history, Travails with the Alien includes Ray's detailed essay on the project with the full script of The Alien, as well as the original short story on which the screenplay was based. These, presented alongside correspondence between Ray and Peter Sellers, Arthur C. Clarke, Marlon Brando, Hollywood producers who showed interest, and a fascinating essay by the young student at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism who broke the Spielberg story, make this book a rare and compelling read on science fiction, cinema and the art of adaptation'.

È morto Sushant Singh Rajput

È di queste ore la notizia del decesso di Sushant Singh Rajput, 34 anni, il cui corpo senza vita è stato rinvenuto nel suo appartamento di Mumbai. La polizia ritiene si sia trattato di suicidio. Sembra che il giovane attore soffrisse di depressione. 

Zoya Akhtar: Everybody in my family has a National Award except me

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Zoya Akhtar a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata ieri da Mid-Day. Zoya Akhtar: Everybody in my family has a National Award except me:

'Little is known about her life up until her rather belated directorial debut at 36-plus, with Luck By Chance (2009), although she'd been working as a film professional for around 18 years before that. Very little worth knowing, Zoya casually reckons, jogging back to age 19, when she started interning for a copy-writer's job at a creative agency - simultaneously reading sociology at Bombay's St. Xavier's College. "I remember watching Salaam Bombay! (1988), being madly in love, and going: I want to direct. And I don't know what I'm going to make. Because Hindi films were not my scene then. Out of the blue, when I was about 21, I got a job with Mira Nair on [the sets of] Kamasutra (1996)." You can find her in a cameo appearance as one of the Kamasutra girls, "an extra part," as she puts it, because ADs are frequently expected to fill-in or add to the human backdrop on shoots. Of all her past associates, Mira as director appears to have left a strong impression on Zoya: "Mira is just special, you can see that. When she is talking to you, you are the only person in the world. She makes people feel special. She knows everybody on a crew by name. I love that about her. And I love her aesthetics."

Post Kamasutra, Zoya recalls, "I started working mainly on American projects that came to India. Went to NYU [New York University] for a diploma [in filmmaking]. Stayed back in New York. Got a job, thanks to Ismail Merchant, in a small, cool, indie film called Side Streets, directed by Tony Gerber." She returned to Bombay as a freelance, professional AD, of which there were only four in all of Bollywood, who did a lot of foreign films and Indian work: "Reema [Kagti], [director] Apoorva Lakhia, and me. Then Kiran Rao came in." Zoya's credits during this phase include Mahesh Mathai's Bhopal Express (1999) and Dev Benegal's Split Wide Open (1999). She chose to specialise in the casting department, because there, "you get to direct actors, with a script," and that's what she ever wanted to learn/master anyway. She was the casting director on Farhan [Akhtar]'s first film Dil Chahta Hai (DCH, 2001), and thereafter Armaan (2003), her mother Honey's directorial debut. Okay did she personally pick/cast that balloon-lover boyfriend in Dil Chahta Hai? "Oh that's actually Hassan, a childhood friend of Farhan. But we handpicked everyone, so to speak. There are very interesting cameos. Kiran Rao is one of the girlfriends in Goa. She'd come to do all the extras' casting for the film's Goa leg!"

Between freelance AD-ing, Zoya had been ideating all along for her debut feature. It's mildly ironic that while so cued into casting, she was unable to kick off her first film for want of a lead actor, for almost a decade that she'd been ready to direct. And the one she eventually cast for the lead role, in her directorial debut (Luck By Chance, 2009) was her brother, Farhan, who'd been around all along! "You cannot cast someone, unless they are ready. And feel that they want to do this. It took Farhan a while to get there - that he wants to act, and that he is a really good actor." While practically the entire Bollywood A-list came down for cameos in Luck By Chance, including both Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan (guessing, for the first time in the same film, although not in the same frame), Farhan was the seventh star to read/consider/hear the script. Hrithik Roshan played the second lead. "Luck By Chance is a book that I am going to write one day, about how that film got made," Zoya sighs. Can't wait. It'd be quite a telling tinsel-town tale, given that nobody in Bombay does it. And Zoya is perfectly positioned to - not just as the quintessential insider, but as someone who can surprise you with her adorably random zaniness, on occasion. Recently at an interview she called herself the love-child of directors Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap. What does that mean? "That I am halfway between Indie and commercial, you know." (...)

And while her films primarily deal with real, human, often raw emotions, there is this carefree cattiness that inevitably slips in too. It's only fair that we dig into a couple of stories behind some stellar, surprising choices she's made so far. For example, why/how/when did a ladies' bag, called Bagwati, bag a proper part in the breezy masterpiece Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara? "That comes from Reema and a close friend of ours, Shai Heredia, who's an academic, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and hysterically funny. She and Reema were on a road trip, and they kept talking to Shai's bag. Think they were just tripping! We just put it into Zindagi." It was Zoya's second film, with Farhan and Hrithik back on her frame, but in a much wider canvas, although the script started out in her head as a small, cathartic, road movie, about three boys in a car - for all the road trips she's taken in her life. Over time, of course, the script "developed a life of its own".

The film she co-wrote after was Reema's Talaash. It's a supernatural thriller that, by the way, was based on a true story, that happened to her! "You have to stop. I am going to be the crazy lady that goes on interviews and says all this shit. I know it sounds really crazy, and I don't want to be propagating this nonsense. But, I had a strange experience on Haji Ali, while a bunch of us were driving back from a nightclub. We thought we had hit a naked woman in the middle of the road. Everybody was freaking out. This is something I told Reema about, and where Talaash came from. I am not going to repeat this story, ever again!"

Okay how about the dog called Pluto, who's the narrator/POV of Dil Dhadakne Do; where does he come from? "From my super-smart, intelligent beagle Zen, who passed away last year. You can find him on my Insta page, Zen Akhtar. Zen would look at us as though he is watching National Geographic - that we are the animals, and he is like, 'What are they doing?' That's Pluto. Even the way the film is shot [as a result] is observational - there are no close ups, only 'wides'." After a preview screening for Aamir Khan and his wife, Kiran Rao, both of whom Zoya makes it a point to get a feedback from before her film's final cut, she asked Aamir if he'd like to voice the dog: "He was, like, after these many years, you have offered me the voice of a dog? I said, please do it. He was, like, yeah, totally! And he just came [on-board], like a sweetheart. It was great!"

Is there anything she'd like to change about Dil Dhadakne Do? "I think the title. Would have been nicer [if it had] a little more gravitas." How about the climax (that was rather OTT, compared to the rest of the film's tone)? "I actually liked the climax (of the mom, dad, sister jumping off the ship, with lifeboats to chase down brother/Ranveer Singh's character). The whole metaphor of the trip is that you can't get rid of anyone. Family is what you are stuck with. You can't just walk out the door. Eventually, when shit hits the fan, they are the only ones who will pull you up too. So when everyone tells me, I don't like the climax; I am like, cool, so what would you do? Till now nobody has given me a better ending. If there is one, I'd be like, damn!"

What did upset Zoya even before the release of Dil Dhadakne Do though was people taking the piss out of the picture for it being centred on lives of the super-privileged - intended also as a barb against movies that Zoya had directed thus far. "Firstly I don't think it was criticism. There is nothing for me to take home from it. It is like somebody seeing a trailer of Gully Boy and saying, oh, this is about poor people. And I made Made in Heaven, along with Gully Boy. And that is about very rich people! I was being interviewed by this woman wearing diamonds and solitaires, and she was telling me, it [the film] is about rich people. I was, like: Would it bother you, if your husband has an affair? Why? But you have solitaires on, it shouldn't bother you! What does it even mean?"

Before Gully Boy - set in a Mumbai slum and the city's underground rap scene - released, it got roundly compared to the American ghetto, hip-hop biopic, 8 Miles. Did that bother her? "The two people I spoke to [to base the film on their lives] are living here. You can talk to them. So, no, I didn't get into it. It bothered me, when they compared Zindagi to Hangover [producer Ritesh Sidhwani had to respond to Warner Bros]. Now, I think that's what they do."

Inspirations from dogs and spirits apart, what makes Zoya's filmmaking process special - given what we've managed to gauge so far - is she is capable of working backwards. Where she must know end, before she locks her script. Which isn't true for many filmmakers, who often arrive at the conclusion, as they navigate the story or characters' journeys: "I have to set a goal. That goal may change. But I when I set off, I have to know where I am taking the film. Otherwise I meander. I need a direction I am shooting at, you know!" The other thing is her complete clarity on the point she's trying to make - so much so that she can distill each film into a single line, which is different from a log-line that describes a plot: "Of course Gully Boy is about a Muslim kid from Dharavi, who expresses himself through rap. It is a rags-to-riches, coming-of-age story. You can pin it down in any log line. But at the core of it, the film is about class. Luck By Chance is really about self-esteem. Zindagi is about living, seizing the day. Dil Dhadakne Do is a film about projection - who we actually are, and what we tend to project. It is what lenses the film, creates the base".'

A brief history of Bella Ciao

Vi segnalo l'articolo A brief history of Bella Ciao (the song Shah Rukh Khan is so sick of) di Sankhayan Ghosh, pubblicato oggi da Film Companion:

'I heard it [Bella Ciao] (...) in the various Indian iterations, during the CAA/NRC protests [proteste contro il Citizenship Amendment Act]. In the #OccupyGateway gathering, one of the protestors stood and sang the new lyrics, written to fit the issue at hand, (...) and the others, seated, sang after him. (...)

Unsurprisingly, I am hearing Bella Ciao more and more without the context. Baba Sehgal has done one, called Kela Khao, so silly that you can't be offended by it. Ayushmann (...) Khurrana plays the tune on his piano. (...) Actress Kriti Kharbanda also attempted a piano cover and uploaded a video. (...) 

Then you had Shah Rukh Khan. (...) In his segment shot from home for a fundraising concert for the COVID-19 outbreak, Khan sang that he is sick of hearing Bella Ciao. (...) He meant it as one of the typically Quarantine things, equating it to activities such as working out and watching TV shows on streaming. Given the significance of the song - a symbol of common people speaking up against an oppressive regime - this appeared insensitive to some. (...) The lyrics for Khan were written by Badshah. (...)

Bollywood has been guilty of bastardising Bella Ciao even before it had become so popular in this part of the world. Lalit Pandit (of Jatin-Lalit) plagiarised the tune in "Love ki Ghanti" from the movie Besharam, starring Ranbir Kapoor. There is also a Telugu song called "Pilla Chao" from the Mahesh Babu film Businessman. They are cringeworthy'.

Video Wapas Jao (Bella Ciao Hindi Version), Poojan Sahil featuring CAA-NRC Protests, 23 dicembre 2019

Video Bella Ciao Hindi at #OccupyGateway #MumbaiWithJNU, 6 gennaio 2020

Video Bella Ciao piano cover by Ayushmann Khurrana & Kriti Kharbanda, 2 maggio 2020

(Non riesco a scovare in rete il video della versione interpretata da Shah Rukh Khan).

Aggiornamento del 26 agosto 2021: Netflix India propone Jaldi Aao!, versione di Bella Ciao rivisitata dal produttore musicale Nucleya e interpretata, fra gli altri, da Shruti Haasan, Anil Kapoor, Rana Daggubati, Radhika Apte e Vikrant Massey. Il video è stato realizzato per promuovere la quinta stagione della serie La casa di carta. Oggi The Hindu pubblica un'intervista concessa da Nucleya:

 

'Nucleya is all smiles as he gushes over Jaldi Aao: The Money Heist Fan Anthem, which he composed ahead of the new season of Spanish-language crime series La Casa De Papel or Money Heist dropping. The track and video (...) has picked up more than 5 million views since its August 23 upload on YouTube. (...) The anti-fascist protest song is from the early 20th Century, and is sung by Italians every year on April 25 to observe Liberation Day, the anniversary of the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945. Over the years through history, there have been many iterations. During the 2020 lockdowns, Italians took to the empty streets and their balconies, belting out the song as a collective and comforting experience, building upon its status as a revolutionary anthem. (...) It was important to Nucleya that Jaldi Aao retained that recognisable melody while adding various elements to it to make it more Indian audience-friendly. “That composition has that [revolutionary] feel to it because of the original song’s lyrics, but we wanted it to sound fresh. I think we did a pretty good job,” he laughs. (...) The rebooted song has a mix of Tamil, Hindi and Telugu lyrics and singing styles to suit the different Indian regional fanbases. As a composer, the core melody had to work with these new elements to make the song feel less forced. Nucleya explains, “The core structure and melody stay the same throughout but what changes is the voice, which gives Jaldi Aao the flavour it needs. For example, at the Tamil part, everything goes deeper with full South Indian drums, and towards the end of the video, there’s a scene where drums are played in the streets of Mumbai and it feels very Maharashtrian. The melody, though, stitches everything tight together”.'

Phaim Bhuiyan vince il David di Donatello

Phaim Bhuiyan vince il David di Donatello come miglior regista esordiente per il film Bangla. Alla pellicola era già stato conferito il Nastro d'Argento per la miglior commedia.

Vedi anche: Bangla - La serie, 12 aprile 2022.

Salman Rushdie: Quichotte

Quichotte, l'ultimo romanzo di Salman Rushdie, sarà distribuito nelle librerie italiane a partire dal 12 maggio 2020. Pubblica Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

È morto Rishi Kapoor

A Mumbai questa mattina si è purtroppo spento Rishi Kapoor, figlio del leggendario attore e regista Raj Kapoor, e padre di Ranbir. 

(Nella fotografia, Rishi e la moglie Neetu Singh in vacanza in Italia nel 2019)

Red: le riprese in Italia

Lo scorso febbraio la troupe di Red era in Italia (Firenze, Viareggio, Toscana, lago di Garda, Dolomiti) per effettuare alcune riprese. Red, diretto da Kishore Tirumala e interpretato da Ram Pothineni e Malvika Sharma, è il remake in lingua telugu della pellicola tamil Thadam del 2019. Video dei brani Nuvve Nuvve e Mounanga Unna.

Firenze

Extraction: locandina e trailer

A partire dal prossimo 24 aprile Netflix proporrà il film d'azione Extraction, con Chris Hemsworth. Nel cast anche Randeep Hooda e Pankaj Tripathi. La versione italiana si intitola Tyler Rake. Trailer in italiano.

Family

Anche l'India è in lockdown. Ma non disperiamo: vi segnalo Family, un genialissimo cortometraggio interpretato - rigorosamente da casa - da un cast a dir poco stellare: Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth, Mohanlal, Mammootty, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Chiranjeevi, Priyanka Chopra, Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh.

Amitav Ghosh: "E adesso in India sprechiamo come qui da voi"

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Amitav Ghosh a Edoardo Vigna, pubblicata dal Corriere della Sera il 30 marzo 2020. Amitav Ghosh: «E adesso in India sprechiamo come qui da voi»:

'Ora l’acqua alta non c’è più, e nessuno sembra interessato al problema per trovare una soluzione strutturale. Passata l’ansia, ci si gira dall’altra parte... Forse è umano, ed è un po’ ciò che succede con la crisi climatica. (...) Venezia, in particolare, dovrà accettare di convivere con l’acqua alta e le sue drammatiche conseguenze a lungo termine?

«Non è vero che nessuno parla dell’acqua alta, qui a Venezia. L’altra sera ero a cena in una trattoria, nel sestriere del Castello, e il proprietario mi ha portato a vedere fin dove è arrivata l’acqua a novembre. Per lui, e per tanti altri, è stata una catastrofe, anche dal punto di vista economico. Ma Venezia purtroppo, rappresenta in modo più ampio ciò che chiamo il “derangement”, lo sconvolgimento, il disordine del nostro tempo».

Cosa intende?

«Tutti sappiamo che questa città è una delle vittime potenziali del riscaldamento globale, se non riusciremo a fermarlo. Allo stesso tempo Venezia attira e vuole sempre più turisti, che rappresentano business e lavoro, e permette a gigantesche navi da crociera di arrivare fin nel cuore della città - cosa che considero terrificante per i danni che provoca alla laguna e all’intero ecosistema. Tutto ciò per me va al di là dell’immaginazione. Gli ecosistemi sono fragilissimi, e noi ormai lo sappiamo bene, eppure sembriamo non tenerne conto. Venezia cattura il “derangement” del nostro tempo anche in questo senso. Stavo poi passeggiando vicino alla basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, che è di fatto il più grande memoriale di una catastrofe che esista al mondo...».

Un ex voto alla Madonna eretto nel Seicento dai veneziani per la liberazione dalla peste che aveva decimato la popolazione nel 1630-31...

«Esatto. E pensavo: nessuno mai ha ipotizzato un ex voto contro l’acqua alta. Non siamo neppure capaci di realizzare quale tipo di disastro sta avvenendo al pianeta e a tutti noi. E una delle ragioni per cui accade è che nessuno può attribuirlo a un’entità superiore esterna a noi, a una astratta “Natura”. Siamo noi che lo stiamo causando, noi che lo stiamo facendo a noi stessi».

Lei ha scritto che gli alberi, come altri esseri non umani, parlano. Se la Terra potesse farlo, cosa ci direbbe? (...)

«La Terra ci sta già parlando, e in modo chiaro. Non è solo l’acqua alta, penso agli uragani, ai tornado... Voi dovreste saperlo più di altri. L’Italia è uno dei Paesi più colpiti al mondo dalla crisi climatica. Il vostro ecosistema è estremamente fragile. Guardi la Sicilia: uno degli effetti dei ribaltamenti climatici è che il deserto del Sahara si sta espandendo verso Nord, e forme di siccità colpiscono la vostra isola. L’acqua manca ormai anche nelle città, in più momenti durante la settimana. Ma nessuno ne parla: forse la Sicilia e i suoi problemi sono finiti ai margini del discorso pubblico italiano ed europeo. (...) È avvenuto di nuovo nel 2018 e nel 2019. Penso ai recenti incendi in Australia. In Italia è accaduto lo stesso: sono stato da poco in Puglia, a Lecce ho visto la distruzione degli ulivi per la Xylella. So che non è effetto diretto del climate change, ma in realtà c’è un collegamento. (...) Con l’Illuminismo abbiamo cominciato a pensare alle risorse del pianeta come a cose che usiamo e controlliamo. Oggi è chiaro che non controlliamo noi i combustibili fossili, sono loro che ci controllano: così profondamente connessi con la nostra vita ci manipolano. Nella storia, nella mitologia greca come in quella indiana, l’umanità ha sempre temuto il “drago sotto terra”: ecco cosa sono gli idrocarburi. E quando si sveglia il drago... Da questo deriva il caos in cui ci troviamo».

Lei ha distinto un approccio alle catastrofi climatiche “occidentale” e uno “orientale”.

«Sì, all’inizio del secolo scorso, c’era una differenza sostanziale nell’uso delle risorse naturali, nella gestione dell’economia, nel modo di affrontare i cataclismi. Un esempio per tutti: Gandhi si opponeva strenuamente all’economia industriale. Ma oggi quella distinzione non c’è più. Chi va in India, in Cina o in Estremo Oriente vede l’assoluta convergenza verso il consumismo e lo sfruttamento delle risorse come sono concepiti in Occidente. Il vostro pensiero è dominante in ogni senso. Questo è ciò che più di ogni cosa mi disturba».

In concreto cosa significa?

«Quando ero un bambino, a Calcutta, mi è stato insegnato a non sprecare mai niente. Non potevo uscire da una stanza senza spegnere la luce o il ventilatore. Mai. Sarei stato punito! Era una cosa davvero importante. Ora non c’è niente più di questo. È tutto finito. Gli indiani sprecano proprio come fate voi in Occidente. Elettricità, acqua... tutto. Mi ricordo la prima volta che sono andato in America, 33 anni fa, vedevo tutte quelle macchine per strada, ognuna con una sola persona dentro. Allora, in India era impensabile: in ogni auto c’erano almeno tre, quattro persone! (...) Ingenuamente pensavo: l’India non sarà mai così! Ma se va in qualsiasi città indiana vedrà che sono diventate come quelle americane».

Cosa è accaduto?

«Di base, con la caduta del Muro di Berlino, c’è stato il trionfo del neoliberalismo. E l’ideologia ha pervaso e convertito tutto e tutti. Ha conquistato le menti. Mi correggo: in India come in Cina c’è una parte della popolazione, contadini e fattori, coloro che hanno a che fare con la terra, che ancora hanno un approccio diverso al mondo, e questo vale anche in Italia e altrove. Sono le élites globali che la pensano diversamente. “Il popolo di Davos”. (...) Sono stato invitato a Davos due volte, una quindicina d’anni fa. Ci sono andato soprattutto per curiosità. Mi sono reso conto che le élites del mondo vanno davvero lì per dare un’occhiata nel futuro, cercare di capire i problemi, e stringere mani, perpetuando il proprio ruolo di élite. Ma lì ho capito che davvero non comprendono la vera portata di questo problema. Lo dissi, la seconda volta che ci andai. Non mi invitarono più... (...) La gente che va lì, i supermanager, i tycoon, i primi ministri, hanno una e una sola religione: la “crescita. Non conoscono nulla all’infuori di questa».

E non esiste nessuna possibilità di mettere insieme “crescita” e “ambiente”? (...)

«Ci sono stati molti tentativi di costruire una “crescita green”, ma nessuno mi sembra convincente. L’idea della “decrescita” è più facile da rendere compatibile, ma non vedo come i politici possano prenderla in considerazione. (...) In India come in Italia, un politico che si presentasse a dire: abbiamo avuto tanto, ora accontentiamoci per il bene del Pianeta, verrebbe bocciato». (...)

In fondo, se è già difficile portare i temi ambientali anche solo al cuore della letteratura...

«Molti scrittori l’hanno fatto. Il vero problema è che i loro lavori non vengono considerati come letteratura. Vengono bollati come fantascienza, come un genere a parte, mai come narrativa seria».

Lei perché ha deciso di farlo?

«Non avevo un piano... Il libro è partito come di solito fanno i libri. Ho attinto a tante cose che non avevo mai considerato, la storia è arrivata».'

Kabir Bedi: messaggi per l'Italia

Nelle scorse settimane Kabir Bedi ha postato nei suoi profili Twitter e Facebook diversi messaggi di solidarietà dedicati all'Italia. Ve ne segnalo solo alcuni: video del 23 marzo 2020, video del 03 aprile 2020, video dell'8 aprile 2020.

Kay Kay Menon: I come from the believable school of performances

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Kay Kay Menon a Priyanka Roy, pubblicata da The Telegraph il 31 marzo 2020. I come from the believable school of performances: Kay Kay Menon:

'Special OPS is unanimously being praised for its plot and performances, even being hailed as a landmark in the Indian web space. Are you hearing similar things?

I can’t really recall anything specific, simply because the response has been so huge and so overwhelming. To pinpoint one is very, very difficult (laughs). The quantity of accolades has been too much. Overall, I am very humbled by the response. We knew that we had made a good series, but this kind of a response was unexpected. It’s a very pleasant feeling.

Himmat Singh is a great character to play in the way he’s written, flawed yet upright and invested with so many layers. Was there a trigger point that made you certain that you wanted to do the part?

I think the trigger point was Neeraj (Pandey) coming up with a series like this. We have known each other for a long time now... 16 years. So when Neeraj told me that he was doing Special OPS and wanted me to play the lead, I had no qualms in saying ‘yes’. It’s more of a trust thing, you know. After that, of course, I read the script entirely. I began from the first episode and I simply couldn’t put down the script till I finished it. I realised that this was tremendous writing, a tremendous screenplay, and all we needed to do was to execute it well.

You have played shades of Himmat Singh in various other characters in your films. What was the biggest challenge of playing a man whose gut and intentions are scrutinised and doubted at every step?

I don’t look at parts as challenges... I categorise them as interesting and uninteresting. The thing is that I play people, I don’t play roles. No two individuals are the same, but two roles can end up being the same. So, say I play Mahesh the cop and Suresh the cop, I will play Mahesh and Suresh as people and not as cops. In Special OPS, I played Himmat Singh, who is, as a person, different from Rakesh Maria (the real-life Mumbai top cop that Kay Kay played in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday). The institutional values are perhaps the same, but the individuals are different. I look at roles as being very limited and, of course, limiting. There are perhaps only about 25,000 roles... lawyer, cop, doctor, terrorist... whereas the kinds of people out there are limitless. For me, Himmat Singh was a person who not only had to maintain a balance between his home and work, but his real character comes through in how he handles himself and his professional life during the inquiry. He had to put across his point without disrespecting his seniors who are conducting the inquiry and that, for me, was interesting because one stands the danger of becoming slightly heroic in nature and then losing it all. That balance was tenuous but interesting for me as an actor.

When you play a person, do your core values have to resonate with that of the man you play or as an actor, are you open to being every kind of man on screen, even if their values are different from yours?

No, I have to strongly believe in every character I play, even if he is an evil person. You cannot carry your personal ego or values into a character. I have to surrender my ego completely and be loyal to who I am playing. Only when you do that, then the person you play becomes believable for the audience... otherwise you end up faking it. If you think you are playing a villain, then you start playing a villain. I know that’s the trend, but that’s not how it’s meant to be done (laughs). That’s why I tell people that when I am playing a villain, then between ‘Action’ and ‘Cut’ don’t mess with me... because I don’t know how I will react! (Laughs) Kay Kay Menon doesn’t exist at that time, it’s only that man I am playing. Basically, I come from the believable school of performances. If you have to make things believable on screen, then you have to be that person... there is no alternative or shorthand to that. That also allows the actor in me to improvise because I am completely driven by the person I am playing. It’s not Kay Kay Menon being smart. (...)

You’ve been in the business for 25 years now. Would you say this is the most exciting time in the Indian creative space, given the wide variety of roles being written and the presence of different platforms to tell one’s story?

I think so. I come from the time where there were no such opportunities... there was no Internet and hence no digital platforms (smiles). I see the young actors of today being given so many opportunities, which we didn’t have when we started out. It feels good to see that. Now, if you are on social media, you can become a star... if you have some talent, that is (laughs). I am glad that opportunities have opened up for this generation, be it artistes, writers, singers, everybody. It’s a good time because it also ensures that the standards go up because there is competition. At the same time, there is also the danger of diluting the quality. It happened with Indian television. It started off as a wonderful medium, we spoilt it... completely! We have to be careful not to do that with the web.

Is there a difference in how you pick your roles now as opposed to how it was a few years ago?

The medium doesn’t bother me... as long as the camera is there, I am fine. Apart from that, it’s difficult to pinpoint how I choose what I choose. It’s about the moment, you know... you read something, you like it, you fall in love with it and you want to do it. It’s simply the feeling of, ‘Okay, this needs to be done’. There is no clause or rule that I follow, it’s an overall subjective feeling. It’s a lot like love, for example. It’s something that you get attracted to at that point of time and say, ‘Let’s give it a try’. And many a time, it fails also... it’s not a foolproof method. I have failed more often than not, but you need to go in with that intent and positivity. (...)

Your Twitter timeline is dominated by fans saying how much they want to see more of you on screen. Has less always been more for you?

That’s not been a conscious decision. People tend to think that I have a plethora of offers at every point of time and that I am being choosy. I am choosy, of course, but that ‘plethora’ doesn’t exist (laughs). Of what’s offered to me, I skim through and do what appeals to me. The offers are definitely not as much as people assume them to be. Sometimes, the industry works in strange ways, I really can’t comment on that. But within the limits of what’s offered to me, I sort of pick enough stuff'.

Manoj Bajpayee: Professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Manoj Bajpayee a Mayank Shekhar, pubblicata da Mid-Day il 7 marzo 2020. Il testo include il video dell'intervista integrale. Manoj Bajpayee: Professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much:

'In a way, the journey of Bombay cinema's transition into millennial cool, late-90s/early-2000s onwards - what with even 'indies' beginning to merge with Bollywood mainstream - starts from a street in Delhi. It's officially named Sudhir Bose Marg, where colleges of Delhi University's (DU) North Campus are lined up one after another, on either side. If you survey this street late '80s onwards, you'd find Manoj Bajpayee enrolled in Ramjas College, fresh off a train from Bihar. Bajpayee says he also used to perform in plays at the next-door Hindu College. (...) When not representing university in cricket, Vishal Bhardwaj (from Meerut) would score music for those plays. "Rekha, Vishal's girlfriend [later his wife], was learning classical music." To the right of Shishir Bose Marg is Khalsa College, where Saurabh Shukla graduated from. To the left is Hansraj College, where Shah Rukh Khan was reading economics. Few years later, Imtiaz Ali (from Jamshedpur) founded Hindu College's dramatic society. At about the same time as Anurag Kashyap (originally from Benares), who was at Hansraj. "Oh there are just way too many people [to name]," Bajpayee trails off. (...)

The point for most of these DU students - who later made the move to Mumbai and cinema - wasn't quite to crack their final exam in history (Bajpayee), or zoology (Kashyap). It was firstly to gain access to the thriving theatre scene in the Capital. This is where Bajpayee co-founded the theatre company, Act One. It had, among others, Imtiaz Ali, (...) Piyush Mishra: "Shoojit Sircar used to design background music, and assist director. (...) Anubhav Sinha assisted [in direction], and was an important part of the circle." During the day Bajpayee trained under Barry John and his company Theatre Action Group (TAG), to secure a place in Delhi's National School of Drama - that ultimately rejected him four years in a row. It's at TAG that he first met Shah Rukh Khan: "No matter how talented we were, girls always flocked to Shah Rukh." Nothing's changed. "Shah Rukh (...) [era un] English theatre actor, (...) from privileged backgrounds in South Delhi," Bajpayee recalls. While everyone really made it on their own in Mumbai/Bollywood, with zero family connections, the one to scale the steepest climb is still likely to be Bajpayee. He was born into a farmer's family, with six siblings, raised in a village called Belwa in Bihar, bordering Nepal, where there wasn't even a local cinema, growing up. 

Besides, being Bihari meant a strong regional accent that he had to shed, in order to ready himself for multiple parts on stage/film: "If you're an actor, you can't be 'one type' in your real life - a Bihari, for instance. You should be able to play a Marathi, Punjabi... For many years, from my Hindi, many people couldn't figure out where I was from." What he worked on harder still is English. Which is just a language, yes, but it also denotes social access in India: "I always knew English is a tool to compete in this country; to fit in, and get your work done - even if I decide to work in the Hindi film industry. I didn't take it as a burden." It was quite common for Bihari students (nicknamed 'Harries') to land up in DU, to pursue courses in sciences and liberal arts, and take a shot at several entrance exams later - chiefly for the civil services. Bajpayee made sure he spent significantly more time with the few foreign students in his college, rather than the 'Harry gang': "The Kenyan/Nigerian guys would listen to my English, quietly, without judgment. Five hours of my day spent with them meant only speaking English, flat-out - gaining command/confidence over the language. Barry John, who took me under his wing, started giving me roles in English plays as well."

This interview is wholly in English. He's as fluent as it gets. This, he says, surprises his former flat-mates - a full-on 'English medium type' in particular, who'd make fun of him back in college. By the early '90s, having spent enough hours perfecting his diction, reading literature, watching plays, doing street theatre, exposing himself to arts and [alternate] cinema, what he calls the "best days of my life", Bajpayee began to 'belong' - to Delhi's intensely active stage scene. (...) This is the catchment area filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, along with his assistant and casting director Tigmanshu Dhulia, tapped into to cast for Bandit Queen (1994). Post its commercial success, the Bandit Queen 'alumni' pretty much migrated en masse to Mumbai. (...) "Seema Biswas got [the lead role with] Sanjay Leela Bhansali. (...) Saurabh Shukla in fact was the busiest..." And Bajpayee? Because his character Maan Singh in Bandit Queen didn't have many lines, despite strong screen presence, he remained relatively unnoticed. (...) What followed is four years of "no work, consequently no food," and life in a chawl. The primary talent he developed in these years, Bajpayee jokes, is an ability to time his entry into friends' homes - right at the moment when lunch was getting served; or a booze bottle was being cracked open! An important lesson that showbiz teaches most aspirants though, and something that Bajpayee appears to have imbibed as a personality trait, is the strength/perseverance to repeatedly face rejection, and calmly move on, before it breaks one's resolve/spirit. "I am basically dheeth [stubborn]," Bajpayee says more than once to describe himself. (...) 

The turning point in Bajpayee's career is obviously the iconic/immortalised 'Bhikhu Mhatre' from Ram Gopal Varma's Satya (1998). Varma, Bajpayee reckons, is the man who singularly altered the landscape of Lokhandwala, and indeed (mainstream) Hindi films. Varma was looking for writers for Satya. Bajpayee introduced him to Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla. Satya led to Varma's Kaun? (1999), also written by Kashyap, and a role that Bajpayee says he practically remodelled on the first day of shoot - turning Sameer Purnavale into a goofy bloke, rather than a serious fellow. Shool (1999), written by Kashyap as well, followed. Among Bajpayee's contributions to this lead part of a quiet cop, diametrically opposite to the boisterous Bhikhu, was the name Samar Pratap Singh. Samar was what Bajpayee wanted to officially change his own name to, but couldn't do paper-work for, before the release of Bandit Queen: "Everybody in Bihar is called Manoj." (...) Up until Chandraprakash Dwivedi's Pinjar (2003) that won Bajpayee his second National Award (first was for Satya), what you sense is an unlikely Bollywood star, on an enviable dream run, both at the box-office, and with critical acclaim. And then everything starts tumbling downhill thereafter - for seven frickin' years straight!

He had a fall-out with Varma, when the latter was at the top of his game: "I used to be angry, sensitive - not an easy person to deal with." Kashyap and he parted ways. He was going to both act in, and co-produce Kashyap's debut: "Anurag had mistakenly presumed that I wasn't interested in the role/film." He looks back at the fallow period, "Those weren't easy times. No work was coming [my way]. And whatever was, didn't match up to standards. Also, I was not keeping well." (...) Bajpayee's actual career graph effectively resembles a symmetrical ECG report, with extensive highs and lows, almost equally spaced out! He agrees, "I still call filmmakers for work, if I've enjoyed their recent film. The hardest part was to convince friends that I was still good enough. (...) When I reminisce [those times], I feel only I could've survived it. Because I don't take it to heart. The only thing that could break me is [upheaval on the] personal front. The professional life, even now, doesn't bother me much. Mumbai says it most beautifully, 'Yaar, load kyun leta hai [Why take stress?]'.

"TV crews that used to hound me started putting their cameras down, watching me enter events. I could hear the reporter, who wouldn't even lower his voice, instructing this to his crew. (...) And that happens with work. I was sure I was going to come back. But I needed a role. When I got Raajneeti, I knew this was it." (...) Raajneeti (2010), a major hit that Bajpayee, 51, admits resurrected his floundering résumé. (...) He earned matchless street-cred as Sardar Khan with Kashyap's masterpiece Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012). Kashyap and he are back to being friends. Of which he laughs, "Anurag is incredibly talented, but a loner. If you meet him for three days in a row, he starts hating you!" Further, his most challenging lead role in the current phase could well be as the Marathi, gay Professor Siras in Aligarh (2015): "A leading journalist had written about how actors' careers got ruined, once they played gay characters on screen. My career got made as a result." (...)

In 2019, Bajpayee stormed into mainstream web with Amazon Prime's smashing success, The Family Man, directed by Raj & DK, playing a spy Srikant Tiwari, who could be any other guy on a Mumbai street. As a basic brief, even that sounds a little lot like Bajpayee's breakout role in Satya: "Bhikhu Mhatre was the most real [gangster] that this country has ever seen on the big screen. He could be standing by a restaurant or a paan shop, and you wouldn't know he's a dreaded don. Which is true for people doing extraordinary things - they're extremely unassuming in day-to-day life. Srikant Tiwari has all the same elements, but we went a little further ahead in this realistic direction - he's even more casual, nervous, anxious [than Bhikhu]." If life/career must indeed be shaped into a circle, let's look at Bajpayee's last major film, Sonchiriya (2019) that (...) is set in the same time-frame and location (ravines of Chambal) as Bajpayee's debut, Bandit Queen. Like with his debut, Bajpayee appears as a quiet dacoit named Maan Singh. It's directed by Abhishek Chaubey (...) who, like his mentor (and Bajpayee's contemporary) Vishal Bhardwaj, went to Hindu College, from the same Sudhir Bose Marg in Delhi'.