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sudipto acharyya

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May 8, 2006, 12:27:54 AM5/8/06

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I didn't find the story of Nitish hilarious.

Long time ago, Mr.JL Godard explained why he doesn't like comedy as a genre. He thought it was reactionary where one set of people laugh over the tragedy of another set of people.

Ranjan Das' story about the plight of Nitish smacks of such reactionary tendencies.

Afterall Nitish matured at his own cost. Isme tera baap ka kya ja raha hai ?

One should be more concerned at the whole lot of people who have received film educaion at a public cost and yet has not shown any responsibility towards the medium. What is worse, they have lent themselves to the neo-casteism of FTIIans just like the IAS, IPS, IITians, Bankers, Railwaymen and so on.

I come across many such Nitish everyday, who have been mesmerised by the digital boom and the high visibility TV world. Most of them nurture aspirations which are beyond their reach either b'coz they do not have the resources or tenacity or talent.

It then becomes my responsibility as a film maker & a film teacher to counsell them so that they can come to terms with their reality.

I guess it's a bit cruel on the part of Ranjan to make fun out of Nitish. It's also easy and cheap.

Afterall, someone who claims to be a film maker ought to exhibit more empathy towards his people.

Sudipto Acharyya.

byoffpuri group <nor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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Today's topics:

* THE MATURING OF NITISH by Ranjan Das - 1 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/byoffpuri/browse_thread/thread/68cda33b661276f5

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TOPIC: THE MATURING OF NITISH by Ranjan Das
http://groups.google.com/group/byoffpuri/browse_thread/thread/68cda33b661276f5
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Fri, May 5 2006 7:55 pm
From: "Bring Your Own Film Festival"

Dear Friends

Here's a wonderful and hilarious story by Ranjan Das about the plight and
predicament of a filmmaker published in our 2006 souvenir.

Don't miss it.

Cheers

Bhadaas! Dho!

the BYOFF team
THE MATURING OF NITISH

Ranjan Das

Nitish is a filmmaker, that rare breed that calls themselves filmmakers
without having made a single film. Perhaps being a filmmaker is the only
profession where you don't have to practice the craft in order to call
yourself one; it takes care of everything, unlike say, a singer or an actor
who has the advantage of singing or acting in front of a motley crowd at
least, in order to lay claim to that profession. Nitish frequently had to
face this question from people:

What do you do?

I am a filmmaker.

Oh, that's good, but what do you *do?*

*I am a filmmaker!*

Na-na, that's ok, but what do you do for a living?

And the conversation would gradually take a different turn and Nitish would
make himself scarce…

Nitish decided that the next time anybody asked him what he did, he would
say that he was a writer…a scriptwriter. But his problems persisted.

What was that?

Well, it is writing for a film. There is a story and I am required to write
the screenplay from that story; sometimes I write the story myself…

Oh, the screenplay, meaning you write dialogues?

Ok, ya…

What films have you written?

Nothing yet…actually, I am working on a couple of scripts…

Oh, so you have not written anything as yet…

It's not like that you see…

No-no, I mean you have not written anything that has been made into a
feature film?

So back to square one. Nitish did not have a palpable profession that
fetched him a livelihood… He was not a technician, an editor or a cameraman
or a sound recordist where he could rattle off names of projects…Worse
still, was when anybody asked which filmstars he knew… How could he tell
them that he has never stepped into a studio floor? Nobody would believe
him…

He was in a state of limbo…

So he decided to go to Bring Your Own Film Festival at Puri in 2004 and met
a lot of people who belonged to that breed who called themselves filmmakers
without having made a single film.

But he also met a whole lot of other people who *had *made films which were
being screened at the festival.

Nitish gathered courage and decided that next time he would come to Puri
with a film of his own, made on DV, a format that has become so popular in
the last couple of years.

So after the festival was over, he went back to his home town (wherever it
is, but I have a lurking feeling that it is somewhere in the eastern zone of
the country) and embarked on a project of working out a feasible script that
could be shot in two to three days with friends as actors and technicians in
minimum locations. The length would be something around 10 to 15 minutes and
the budget should not exceed… Damn it man, one has to work up the budget…
But that can wait.

He spent the next couple of weeks thinking up ideas and threw them inside
the wastepaper basket. Damn it, it's so difficult to work up a feasible
script. He thought of all the films that he had seen in the festival and
tried to draw inspiration. He summoned up all the European and Latin
American masters that he has seen in the last 15 years…The inspiration was
there, but ideas were lacking. Being one never to give up, Nitish continued
to struggle with himself and still could not come up with an idea that
appealed to him.

And suddenly it occurred to him, *does he have it in him to make a film at
all?* *Or is it just inspiration, a burning desire without the accompanying
competence?* All his years of film viewing, dissecting masters, abusing
contemporary directors (without having seen any of their films), studying
semiotics and structuralism and fighting with friends over film related
issues…He was now 35 and Rimli, his girlfriend from college, had left him to
marry an investment consultant in the US six years ago after waiting in vain
for him to make a film for years on end.

Nitish started questioning his ability and hit the bottle. Not that he never
drank before, but this time he immersed himself in the liquid… and lo and
behold, he suddenly hit upon an idea! There it was, floating in front of him
all this time and he was not aware of it. And in a state of trance he wrote
out a treatment… Next morning when he read it he discovered that it was not
so bad after all. So that evening he drank again and started working out the
details. And slowly a script started shaping up…

The next few days he drank without respite and wrote till he was through
with the script and drank more… He had it in him after all… He was not
incompetent…

The next step was to consult a cameraman friend and work out the feasibility
of the project in terms of production and budget. Well…even if he didn't pay
anybody and got the camera free and edited the film at night on the sly at
some studio with the help of an editor friend, the budget still came to 50
grands. But there was no stopping him now. He borrowed from friends and
relatives (his friends had immense faith in him always as a filmmaker); sold
his mother's jewelry, stole (yes!)… He was like a man possessed. And then he
shot his film and edited it.

And he was a changed man when he saw the final version: It was a pile of
shit.

Nitish never went to the BYOFF at Puri in the second year.

Today he works as an accounts assistant in a private firm and draws a salary
of Rs 3,000.

Moral of the story: Just as the digital 'revolution' has democratized and
demystified the process of filmmaking, it has also opened the floodgates of
garbage that is being churned out by a whole lot of people who call
themselves 'independent filmmakers'. At least, Nitish realized that he was a
pile of shit; most don't.

Ranjan Das

Writer- Director

*----------------------------------------*

An Anecdote: (This is a true story)

One friend from London writes to another in Calcutta (this was long before
the days of emails and computers when people still wrote in longhand): "…and
how are our friends in Calcutta?"

The friend from Calcutta wrote back: "Oh, they are all fine and working. And
those who are not working are making documentary films."

*Ranjan Das is a Writer-Director based in Calcutta and Bombay. To be
precise, based in Bombay but visits Calcutta once in a while. Budding with
ideas and stories, this amazing storyteller can be contacted at
freak...@rediffmail.com*

--
Visit http://www.byofilmfestival.com to know more about and register for the
BRING YOUR OWN FILM FESTIVAL, PURI 2006

Also visit the Group home page: http://groups.google.com/group/byoffpuri to
post your thoughts, suggestions and of course communications with
fellow-filmmakers/enthusiasts to make BYOFF 2006 a grand success!

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