Actor Adil Hussain has a lot of reasons to be happy. His film Footprints On Water premiered at the UK Asian Film Festival recently, with Hussain winning the Best Actor award for the same. Directed by debutant British filmmaker Nathalia Syam, the film also won the award for the Best Debut Film at the New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF).

“This is the first attempt to make a film on a subject that is generally unspoken of in this part of the world,” says an elated Hussain of the film, which is based on the plight of illegal immigrants in the United Kingdom. Even as this project continues to make waves globally, Hussain rues the fact that despite the attention they receive at international film festivals, such projects are often ignored at home.

“The kind of films that the Indian masses have been given to watch are often typical ‘good boy, bad boy’ [stories]. That’s probably one of the reasons why Indian audiences are not used to watching complex films and their awareness of watching good films is not really cultivated,” explains Hussain, adding, “I’d like to put this responsibility on the filmmakers and tell them that it’s easy to sell films that are black and white, instead of those with grey shades.”

Another major reason why such films often go unnoticed is the lack of funds to produce and promote them, feels the 59-year-old. “Producers [in India] are not ready to trust the content and put in money to bring these films into public consciousness and awareness,” says the actor, adding that unless such films are given their due share of promotion, viewers might not even know of their existence.

Even on streaming, which is often considered revolutionary for cinema and cinema-watching, “People ask, Who is the star?’ Platforms are following mainstream Indian cinema in that regard, except some series”, points out the Tooth Pari: When Love Bites actor, adding that the makers are still searching for buyers for Footprints On Water.

Actor Adil Hussain came back to Delhi recently from Hampi, only to be greeted by the weekend curfews, and soon restrictions were imposed.

“An entire lockdown is not going to work economically for anybody. There’s a huge section of middle-class families who’ve been sort of devastated. Today, people know how to look after themselves so as to not contract the virus. They can also look at themselves as what went wrong in terms of our healthy lives. All these questions have to come into the mainstream conversation,” he says.

The 57-year-old reveals that he had no professional commitments, so nothing got hampered in the pandemic. In fact, Hussain had shot for multiple projects in 2020 ever since restrictions were eased and shoots were allowed. “I had shot for three films back-to-back. First it was Bellbottom in United Kingdom, then I came back for an Assamese film, and then again went back to the UK for a film called Footprints On Water,” says the actor, who then came to Delhi in September last year, to meet his 90-year-old mother.

“Then me and my family went to Hampi to meet my friend. I’ll begin my next film in June in UK. I have nothing that got postponed. I wanted a break,” he adds.

As the number of Coronavirus cases continue to rise, it warrants the question what led to this. Hussain feels it’s little tricky to say where things went so wrong. “After a year of lockdown, things started opening up, and we forgot about it. We didn’t learn our lesson properly. At this time, you don’t know... even scientists don’t. They’re saying now the virus has mutated, it’s in the air. We need to find a solution instead of pointing fingers.”