Filmmaker Nalin Kumar Pandya or Pan Nalin, as he is now popularly known, grew up selling chai at a railway station in Gujarat. Nalin, the son of a tea-stall owner, used to help his father sell chai and farsan, but soon decided that making movies was his true calling.
Today, Nalin shuttles between Paris and Mumbai, after making it as a filmmaker and receiving global recognition with films like Samsara and Valley of Flowers. The 55-year-old is now ready with Angry Indian Goddesses, which is his first Hindi film. I spoke to Nalin about the film, his views on censorship, the Paris attacks and if he finally figured out what women want.
Q. Most filmmakers find it hard to handle two actresses on a set, how did you manage seven in Angry Indian Goddesses?
Pan Nalin: (Laughs) Oh my god... or oh my goddess rather! Before I started, my friends asked me, why are you doing this to yourself? But as the casting process and the workshops, pre-production and production started, we realised that a lot of these notions and pre-conceived ideas were all wrong. We worked really well together.
Casting played an important role in it. First, we did cast on the basis that they are true to character and second, also because of the nature, the human nature they have and the openness and values they carry. So all of that played in bringing successfully all of them together.
Q. I know you can turn around and ask, “ why not?” but, why a female-buddy film?
Pan Nalin: It didn’t start as a female buddy film. I always have strong female characters in my movie, so I was writing a story on a group of friends who happen to be girls and during the process of researching, writing and searching for funds, a friend, who is a big film buff pointed out to me – do you know, if you do this, it will be like India’s first female-buddy film?
Q: Angry Indian Goddesses picked up the first runner-up for the People’s Choice Awards at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Audience Choice Award at the Rome Film Festival, what’s the best compliment you’ve received for the film till now?
Pan Nalin: I think there were many, but a few of them stay.
That was the most awesome compliment… and he just walked away.
Q. Your previous films, Samsara and Valley Of Flowers, were of a different scale, they had a wide canvas, landscapes, an epic sort of mounting, while Angry Indian Goddesses is a much more personal and intimate film. Was there a conscious decision to change and do something different?
Pan Nalin: All stories are born with a natural cinematic treatment, Samsara, the way I made it, I could never make Angry Indian Goddesses in a similar cinematic treatment, or Valley Of Flowers was a manga like anime epic, spanning across two centuries, it was very different.
Q. With Angry Indian Goddesses are you also trying to purposefully look at the desi box-office, something you’ve not consciously tried to do with your earlier films? It’s your first Hindi film.
Pan Nalin: For a long time I’ve wanted to make a Hindi film, I toyed with the idea, but I always thought one million filmmakers are already doing it, why get into that? When I started writing this 5 years ago, there were no takers, this was before even Kahaani. I did shop around and people said, who will want to watch women in this movie? After Kahaani became successful, I went around again to find some financing. Because this was a Hindi film dealing with urban Indian women, so somewhere I felt it should reach the audience here.
We’ve had some test screenings and people have loved it, but we really have to see with the commercial release.
Q. Your films have unabashed sex scenes, nudity and sexuality. Were you apprehensive about how the Central Board of Film Certification would react to your film here?
Pan Nalin: It’s in the process I’m told by the producer, I’m not too involved with that. I don’t think we have very much to worry with Angry Indian Goddesses.
Q. But you must heard about the absurd manner in which the CBFC functions here, most recently James Bond had his kisses snipped. What are your views on cinema and censorship?
Pan Nalin:
Even to cut out violence it doesn’t make sense, I was in Paris, I was watching what is being shown in terms of violence and killing, we know what exists in terms of pornography on the net, so the whole era of consuming stories, moments, emotions has changed, so where and how are we going to control? And it’s a known thing world over that that more you suppress the more it will try to jump out.
Q. Speaking of Paris, the city is a like a second home for you, you were there during the attacks on November 13, as a filmmaker have been you been able to make sense of what exactly happened there and where all this is headed?
Pan Nalin:
I know these places, I’ve been to Bataclan so often, the restaurant called ‘Little Cambodia’ (Le Petit Cambodge), I’ve been there quite often, I do know friends of friends who’ve died. It is sad. My fear is always that are we as humanity going to become numb to violence like we’ve become numb to poverty? That really scares me. And also when I look at the kids, I wonder, what are they going to see 20 years from now? And it’s not so easy to pin point, it’s so complicated.
In my mind its not like there are bad guys and good guys, I wish it were that simple. When you read the profiles of the people who’ve been radicalised and what went through their lives.
Q: Finally, coming back to Angry Indian Goddesses, having worked so intensely with 7 women on such a personal film which has been with you for over 5 years, have you finally figured out what women want?
Pan Nalin: (Laughs) Oh no! Absolutely not, and I love that, I think women should remain an enigma. (Laughs)
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