Filmmaking is a journey, says Rima Das

Due to the pandemic and the lockdown, the director’s untitled next film with actor Tillotama Shome is has been delayed indefinitely.

 

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ilmmaker Rima Das, whose film Village Rockstars (2017) was India’s official entry to the 91st Academy Awards, has been staying alone in Mumbai during the lockdown. “I was working on an untitled film with Tillotama Shome. More than 50 percent of the film was supposed to be shot in Mumbai and the rest in Assam. But now the film is going to be on an indefinite halt. We would have had a crew with us. It looks very unlikely that shoots will begin anytime soon,” she says.

Talking about spending time on her own, Das says, she used to always like her own space “but this lockdown and pandemic are ‘forcing’ people to stay at home, which is increasing my anxieties about the uncertainty of things even more. How many movies can one watch now, it is getting a bit too much.”

Das wishes she was at her native place in Assam right now, but she is hopeful that she will be able to head back home soon. “We have to be hopeful in these times. That’s all we can do,” says the maker of films such as Bulbul Can Sing (2018) and Man with the Binoculars (2016).

Initially, Das who wanted to become an actor, says making her award winning film Village Rockstars was a journey of sorts for her. “I have heard people say negative things about it. But there will always be people who will say both positive and negative things. One has to be sensible enough to take something from both. When Man with the Binoculars didn’t do well, I was devastated, and I cried one day in the middle of the road, but I did not give up. I kept trying. Filmmaking is a journey. Some people are lucky, they get instant success but for others it’s a process, it’s not something that can be achieved in a day. You might even get success overnight but the effort, the dedication, the passion and the love for making films are a continuous process,” says Das who enjoys watching Majid Majidi and Andrei Tarkovsky films, and wishes to make more “realistic and experimental” films.