Currently working on multiple projects including one on diabetes which affects a sizable number of people in the country but seldom finds any representation in cinema, Q wants to collide it with the world of sweets…writes Sukant Deepak
Even though his film ‘Brahman Naman’ was the first Indian original to premiere on Netflix, India’s most subversive National Award-winning filmmaker Q (Qaushiq Mukherjee) known for movies like ‘Tasher Desh’, ‘Gandu’, ‘Ludo’, ‘Garbage’ and the web-series ‘TaranathTantrik’ had vanished for five years.
Someone whose movies were screened at some of the most prestigious festivals across the world tells: “Now, I am again starting to enjoy the idea of filmmaking. One of the reasons for my vanishing was that OTT became completely mainstream, and I do not like the idea of working with big guys.”
Stressing that digital platforms have finally killed the movie, Q, whose company ‘Oddjoint’ was the first to shoot with a DSLR, and first to proclaim that distribution will be digital, says: “We were making films because we were protesting and had immense success abroad by positioning ourselves when there was no reference point. But that was an exercise purely in understanding different artistic and technical drives.”
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Currently working on multiple projects including one on diabetes which affects a sizable number of people in the country but seldom finds any representation in cinema, Q wants to collide it with the world of sweets.
“Almost every town in Bengal has a large number of mishti shops, there are thousands of varieties and people are obsessed with them.”
Also on the cards is a film adaptation of a 1929 book written by an anonymous writer Ms. Mukherjee in the background of the Chauri Chaura movement.
“At this phase of my life, I am looking at old stories that affect a lot of people.”
Also developing an App meant to be a transmedia platform, the filmmaker, who is a rapper and guitarist too, states that most people do not know about IP and its value, something this app will help.
Talk to him about his fascination with dark arts, and he recalls that close to the place where he was shooting his film ‘Love in India’, there were several hard-core sects that had settled there from different places – Buddhist tantrics, Vaishnavs, Shavaits, and Shakti people.
“Firstly, I would not use the word ‘dark arts’, let us stick to ‘aboriginal’. Interestingly, all of them at a root level use the same discipline. I was completely fascinated by the cultural exchange and the overlaps. Sexuality played a big part, thus there was a confluence of the physical and spiritual too. Being born into a communist family where rationalism was big, spirituality touched me much later,” says the director who is originally from Kolkata and is currently in Chandigarh for the Cinevesture International Film Festival (CIFF).
While he spent time and closely observed the cults, Q, who now lives in Goa says the change of place has been great for him but he does not like the shift that is taking place.
“A lot of super-elites are now coming, hiring water tankers to fill their swimming pools… of course, I understand that a place like Goa is bound to undergo shifts. But yes, the civil society is strong and active. I am closely involved with environmental activists. I was a city boy but this place has made me conscious, it has been like a university.”
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