Shaji N. Karun

Shaji N. Karun

Corporate houses have a responsibility towards cultural focus of the country said veteran filmmakers at IFFI-Goa 2009 today. At the combined press conference of Shaji Karun’s Kutty Srank, Ijjodu of M S Sathyu and Rituparno Ghosh’s Shob Charitro Kalponik the directors expressed their views on working for projects of corporate film making organizations, in this case Reliance Big Picture. Shaji Karun was clear that films are the cultural expression of a society and corporate houses have a responsibility towards the cultural focus. As for his own experience he said that once the creative independence of the director is recognized and he is trusted then there is no problem. He found his experience of making Kutty Srank totally free of any interference, a sentiment shared by M S Sathyu and Rituparno Ghosh. Sathyu liked the transparent nature of the arrangement and said “even for new filmmaker this type of funding will be of great benefit.” In case of Rituparno, he found it to be ‘a normal healthy relationship between the director and his producer.’

Talking about his experience of coming back to direction after a long gap M S Sathyu said that new technology has changed the scenario and quick cutting has become a norm however ‘ I stick to my way of narration allowing a shot to have its impact’. He revealed that the idea of Ijjodu was conceived 30 years ago and his director of photography Bhasker said that it appeared that time stood still to keep the location ready for realization of Ijjodu.

Shaji Karun’s lead actress Padmapriya found the experience of working with him an elevating experience emotionally and spiritually. The director of Photography Anjali Shukla said that it was an honour to work with Shaji whose films were the foundation of her learning as cinematographer.

On being asked about working with stars like Bipasha Basu, Rituparno Ghosh said the challenge was to free her from the limitations imposed by the notion of her body being her artistic context. For his hero Prosenjit, who played a poet, Rituparno had only one brief -write a page every day. ‘The film required luster, spectacle and intricacies of visual complexity which were successfully executed by the cinematographer Saumik Halder’ added Rituparno Ghosh.