AlternateTake Adda

Brandon Ingram is an actor and author, based in Colombo. He has been working in theatre since 2006; 2020 marked his film debut as he played Arjie in Deepa Mehta's Funny Boy in a performance full of a gentle slow bloom. In our conversation with him, we try unpack his association with Funny Boy and diverse assortment of interests and multi field roles across the years , all fuelled and bound by his singular interest in storytelling.

Rehan Mudannayake is a Sri Lankan actor and director who made his mark as the charismatic and charming Shehan in Deepa Mehta's 2020 film Funny Boy. His suave, insouciantly confident presence in the film happens to be his first acting gig. He talks to us about preparation, reception, key touch points the film sparks , the peripheral conversation, influences, and contemporary Sri Lankan cinema.

In a brief chat, Bhaskar Hazarika lets us in on the various camera trickeries in Kothanodi, the hiccups of shooting a debut in Majuli, emphasizing his working solely in the interest of the story, keeping subtexts secondary. Among other things, he explains the audience manipulation achieved in Aamis, why he did weigh ahead on how much he could provoke, and insists on audiences taking more responsibility for health of indie films. 

Don Palathara explains why he doesn't necessarily view his films, Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam and Everything is Cinema as companion pieces, how he ensured a fluidity of camera in sync with the car in the former and explored the ways in which politics of language is geared for personal agendas. He elaborates on his resisting all forms of politically correct representations, the songs that tail the recent three films, the production and reception aspects, among other things.

Ivan Ayr-directed film Milestone actor Lakshvir Saran talks to us about the workshops that gave him a clear idea of the director Ivan's perspective, decoding and inhabiting the lived-in experiences of the truck driving community, the gradual process of habituating himself with the cabin space. Saran elaborates on an actor's need to be humble and the film being a vanity check and also shares some anecdotes from his Venice film festival experience and getting to watch The Disciple with Chaitanya Tamhane. (We are temporarily back from our hiatus only for this episode.)

Q talks about how 5 years of making his documentary Love In India were his definitive film school, encounters with Run Lola Run and Visitor Q changing his life and his discomfort with western storytelling mode. He elaborates on working in the lo-fi fashion, the political underside to being an independent filmmaker, and insists why he's most averse to the consumerist urgency of delivering an ultimate satisfactory high to his audiences. He shares fascinating snippets from his diverse work, such as the songs of Gandu being created within an hour, why he believes Bengali cinema has already perished for years now.

Across a sprawling conversation, Aseem Chhabra enlists and elaborates on his favorite films from this year, sterling performances across film and series that riveted him, and also gives us a low-down of the films he got to watch at all the virtual film festivals that he adored. And of course we had to include speculations about Oscar nominations and he also speaks at length about Jallikattu being selected as the Indian entry and it's implications.

Film critic Poulomi Das talks about being drawn by investigative journalism and culture reporting, how she tries to maintain an economy in her writing , emphasizes the importance of publications backing long form entertainment journalism and the lack of reportage on the film festival culture in India. She explains the functioning of Berlinale Talent programme she was a part of in 2019. She also talks about the ailments of the cluttered Bengali OTT space, and shares few film recommendations.

Over a telephonic conversation, Karma Takapa, director of Ralang Road , spoke to us about trying to break down the image of a beautiful hill town and shifting the perception of a place. He elaborates his desire to explore Sikkim beyond a visitor's exalted perspective and why the animal motifs in the film weren't deeply structured at the writing stage. On working with non professionals, he emphasised on the need to tap an inherent facet of the person rather than constructing a wholly different character from scratch. In a tone which he stressed as not being despondent, he talked about filmmaking being too besotted with narrative centric aspirational template and the dire importance and often luxury for indie filmmakers of getting an opportunity to make a second feature film , and the challenges of setting up and sustaining his production house , Human Trail Pictures.

Kabir Singh Chowdhry, director of Mehsampur, explains his approach to filmmaking as that of an ethnographer. He talks about his constant discomfort with feeding off people's traumas for artistic purposes, insists on Mehsmapur being a foreword to the ultimate project Laal Pari. He also insists that his lockdown film Monomaniacs originated from a desire of conducting therapeutic group activities, as well as capturing the prevailing sense of loss, and why he thinks Chandigarh is a kind of vacuum city. He also gives us generous glimpses into his new project revolving around fossils.