Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 23, 2015)

Industry folk hail Court’s selection as India’s official entry to the 88th Academy Awards, cast and crew elated over big feat
Anirban Das & Sonali Joshi Pitale (MID-DAY; September 24, 2015)

It is finally official. Court, Chaitanya Tamhane’s multilingual arthouse drama which struggled long for a theatrical release, has been chosen as India’s contender in the foreign language film category at the 2016 Oscars. Earlier this year, it had bagged the Best Feature Film honour at the 62nd National Film Awards apart from 20-odd international awards, including the Lion Of The Future and Best Film in the Orrizonti category at last year’s Venice International Film Festival.

For the official entry to the 88th Academy Awards, the low-budget movie sans big names edged past strong contenders like Baahubali, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, PK and Piku. In fact, until yesterday, Tamil movie Kaakka Muttai was said to be leading the race to the Oscar competition. But now Court, which highlighted the working of India’s bureaucracy-ridden judicial system, is being labelled as a worthy choice for Oscar consideration. This is also the first time in years that the selection has not generated difference of opinion or dissent among industry folk.

Filmmaker Amole Gupte says, “Court is a good choice. My pick, however, was Killa.” His contemporary, Sudhir Mishra welcomes the decision of the Film Federation of India jury headed by Amol Palekar and states: “Court is a wonderful choice. I congratulate Amol and his team for the fantastic selection. The way the story has been told is great. It has a unique voice, an ability which is rare and shows the direction that new Indian cinema is headed in.”

Elated over the news, Court director Chaitanya Tamhane, who is currently in Japan, issued a statement that reads: “At every juncture of the film’s journey, we have felt that it has given us more than we could ever imagine. Once again, this has come as a genuine surprise to both Vivek (Gomber, actor-producer) and me. Ever since we started working on the film, we kept our expectations low. Especially in this case (Oscar selection), since these results tend to be so unpredictable. It just felt like a wise thing to not expect too much. Now that it has actually happened, we would like to thank the jury for its decision and everyone who has supported the film so far.”


Well known theatre actress Geetanjali Kulkarni, who played a public prosecutor in the film, recalls how Vivek took the responsibility of producing the film, which was struggling to get a financer on board. “I must say he did a good job and fulfilled his responsibilty. He never got into mathematics of production, otherwise the film would not have reached the audience. It was Chaitanya’s debut film and whenever he approached people, they told him it should be his fifth film and not the first one. However, he was ready to take a risk and went ahead with his conviction. He was not scared of failure or rejection. The team dedicated its time to work on post production and patiently waited for its release,” she adds.

With so many big films in the race for the Oscar selection, the Court team hardly had any expectations of making it through, admits Geetanjali and adds: “This is the first time that a film which won a National Award is going to the Oscars. Incidentally, that announcement (about National Award win) also came when our film was about to release, which helped us immensely.”

The celebrations, however, have to wait since Chaitanya and Vivek are both currently in Japan. “I have spoken to them over text messages and rest of the cast members are also in different cities now, so we could not celebrate the big news. Once they come back, we will have a party,” she says.

Geetanjali, however, refuses to tag Court as a ‘regional’ film. “It has Gujarati, Hindi and English content as well. It is, in fact, an advantage that we have so much diversity which gives us the opportunity and energy to present different subjects in different languages. We should feel blessed that we can represent ourselves in various ways,” adds the actress.
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Shortly after news trickled in about 'Court' being named as India's entry to the Oscars' Best Foreign Language Film category, veteran filmmaker Rahul Rawail resigned from the jury. Speaking to hitlist, Rawail said, "I had no disagreement over the selection of 'Court'. I am proud of the choice, in fact. So, my resignation had nothing to do with it."

"We had a lot of great films in the reckoning and were proud that those films were made in India. We had a great jury and all the people have great knowledge of cinema. I only had a problem with the way the whole process was conducted."

"Two films were in a neck-and-neck race, and the film, which I had voted for, was being manipulated for more votes to come to it. I resigned because of the manipulation of the whole system which did not suit me. From day one, it had been such. I don't want to take names right now. But I can tell you that my whole grouse was with the chairman, Amol Palekar, not with Court's selection."

Rawail later tweeted: "Jst wanna clarify tht am proud of Court n fully support its selection I resigned from the Oscar jury bcoz of Mr Palekars obnoxious behaviour (sic)."

Killa is beautifully shot. It is set in a small town in Konkan and the small town nuances and feel is brought alive beautifully and realistically by cinematographer-director Avinash Arun. The mother-son relationship and the manner in which the mother independently took charge is quite a novel idea. The bond shared by the kids is sweet, despite their naughtiness. Some classroom scenes are hilarious. Great performances by Amruta Subhash, Archit Deodhar (Chinmay) and especially by Parth Bhalerao (of Bhoothnath Returns fame). On the flipside, the film could have been shorter. Few scenes fail to make the desired impact. The relevance of the lighthouse in the narrative could have been better explained. The idea of the fort sequence is nice but impact gets diluted as it’s a bit too stretched. All in all, a good effort, especially for the first-timer Avinash Arun!

My rating - **** out of 5!

Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 17, 2015)

When Neeraj Ghaywan contacted Avinash Arun in January 2014, he sounded desperate. In two days' time, he was scheduled to go to Varanasi to shoot a pitch video to attract funding for his film Masaan from the international market at the Sundance Film Festival. But Neeraj's director of photography backed out from the project. He was hoping Avinash would step in immediately.

The duo had been friends for a long time now, sharing innumerable cups of coffee, cigarettes and notes when they were students at the Film and Television Institute of India. They had worked together on Anurag Kashyap's short film, The Day After Everyday. Neeraj was the associate director and Avinash the cinematographer.

When Neeraj called, Avinash was busy with Killa, his directorial debut, which was being screened in the Panorama Selection at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival in two weeks' time. "I was caught up in post-production and hadn't even started on the subtitles," recalls Avinash. "That's when it struck me that Neeraj is a master at subtitling."

The two made a pact: Neeraj would subtitle Killa and Avinash would shoot Masaan. "I fell in love with Varanasi and the team over the next three months," smiles Avinash.

Masaan received a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival this year and won two honours: the FIPRESCI Prize in the main competition section and a special prize for debut films. It tells the story of a lower caste boy, Deepak Chaudhary (Vicky Kaushal), who is hopelessly in love with Shalu (Shweta Tripathi). There's a second story revolving around a father and his daughter, Vidyadhar (Sanjay Mishra), and Devi Pathak (Richa Chadha), who find themselves in the middle of a sexual controversy within a religious set-up.

Avinash informs that to prepare for his role of a pious pandit, Sanjay Mishra actually lived on a boat on the Ganges. "For two months, he dressed, ate and lived like a Benarasi baba. He had turned into one at the end of the first 10 days itself. After pack up, we would all gather on his boat and he regaled us with anecdotes," he reminisces.

The rest of the cast and crew lived with the locals at Manikarnika Ghat and Harishchandra Ghat, building what Avinash calls "an emotional connect". They witnessed births and deaths, celebrated festivals and finally got access to shoot cremations.

"You can smell death on the Ghats which have been used as cremation grounds for generations. One two-minute shot I filmed was the burning of a body. Even though it was a wide angle shot, my hands got burnt, my body felt like it was on fire and my skin turned black. I wondered how young boys worked there for a living and faced the fire in the summers," Avinash shudders.

Since the film was shot in sync sound, even the sound mixer Vinit D'Souza was on the sets and often a part of Avinash's heated debates with Neeraj, along with the first assistant director, Karuna Dutt. All of them were working for free. "Today, we're one family. We recently met and have decided to travel to Varanasi again, soon," Avinash signs off.