The 25-year-old filmmaker on his love for storytelling and receiving hugs from strangers for his debut which received a special mention at the National Awards
Anuka Roy (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 23, 2017)


His critically-acclaimed film will be screened in a prison in Belgium this weekend as part of the MOOOV Film Festival where it has been selected for the competition category. But Shubhashish Bhutiani, whose Mukti Bhawan — a dark comedy that takes a stab at death, admits that the choice of subject wasn’t a conscious one. “I just deeply connected with the story and I had this desire to convey it. So, I went on and made it,” says Bhutiani. His film narrates the story of a father’s (Lalit Bahl) wish to spend his last days in Varanasi. That the holy city by the Ganges offers specialised accommodation for such cases serves this father, who checks into one such ‘mukti bhavan’ along with his son (Adil Hussain).

The film traces the relationship shared between father and son and how, despite their concealed resentment for each other, they grow to appreciate their bond. That the film received a Special Mention (Feature Film) at 64th National Film Awards means a lot to the young filmmaker, but he’s even more thrilled by the barrage of phone calls and messages he received from those within the industry and even from strangers. “There were complete strangers who hugged me after watching the film,” Bhutiani smiles.

The idea for this movie occurred to Bhutiani a couple of years ago when he visited Varanasi just after completing a filmmaking course from the School of Visual Arts in New York. “I had heard about these hotels — mukti bhawans and I began visiting them. It was initially just out of curiosity. That place stuck in my mind and I was intrigued by the importance this place held for the people and their families,” he says. Bhutiani was also sensitized to the challenges experienced by those caring for their parents while juggling their jobs and personal responsibilities. “I think somewhere these ideas came together in my film,” adds the filmmaker. “I discovered theatre when I was a teenager in a Mussoorie boarding school. I fell in the love with the process of putting a story together,” says Bhutiani who directed his first play — a Peter Pan adaptation when he was only 17.

Like most, Bhutiani too had his moments of doubt about his chosen path but those around him egged him to keep at it. While pursuing a film course in New York, he made a short film Kush in 2013. The film followed a Sikh boy whose life is threatened due to the riots that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The film was amongst the top 10 live-action shorts competing for the final five nominations in the 2014 Oscars, even while it didn’t make the cut.

Finding a producer to fund one’s vision is one of the biggest challenges for most debutants. Bhutiani’s father Sanjay co-produced his directorial debut, along with Sajida Sharma, would mean half the battle won. But Bhutiani insists that didn’t change a thing. “When you are directing a film, you have expectations from yourself. The pressure is to tell the story the way you imagined it and in the best possible way,” explains the director. “When I was a kid, my father used to bring laser discs home. We would watch almost three or four movies a week. I loved cinema from the moment I discovered what it was,” say the filmmaker.

The man everyone is raving about for making a stellar film on death is all but 25. Shubhashish Bhutiani on why he chose death and detachment for his debut feature
Jane Borges (MID-DAY; April 16, 2017)

What if you woke up one day, and had this unusual feeling about your end being near? In the recently released Hindi drama, Mukti Bhawan, that’s what happens with Dayanand Kumar, played by veteran actor Lalit Behl. On the dinner table, Kumar tells son Rajeev (Adil Hussain) and the family, about a recurring dream that makes him believe that he is done in for. He’d rather spend his last days in Varanasi, within the chambers of Mukti Bhawan (Hotel Salvation), he conveys to the family.

The premise of the story seems strange, but for many believers of the Hindu way of life, achieving moksha (salvation) has closely been associated with the holy city that sits along the Ganges. What’s stranger though is the existence of hotels that claim to be gateways to this redemption.

For Mumbai-based writer-filmmaker Shubhashish Bhutiani, who is riding high on the success of his debut feature after it received two special mentions — Hussain for his performance and Bhutiani for the film — at the 64th National Awards last week, a chance encounter at a ‘salvation hotel’ back in 2013, led him to write this story. “A film is usually a culmination of things that happen around you. Back in 2013, my grandparents weren’t going through the best time. I could see my family juggle responsibilities to take care of them. There was struggle. Around the same time, I went travelling to Varanasi, and happened to come across one such hotel, and was fascinated. When I began talking to the aged who resided there, I realised that they could be members of my own family,” recalls 25-year-old Bhutiani.

Somehow these two stories came together and begged for attention. The young filmmaker, who at the time had just released a short titled Kush, which revolved around 17 children on a field trip during the 1984 riots, started researching his new project. “I only pursue ideas that nag at me for more than a month; this was one of those days,” he recalls. But, Bhutiani’s intention wasn’t to make a film. “It could have been a short story that I ended up writing, and never looked back at. I have a whole bank of those. I just wanted to enjoy the process of telling the story.”

Despite zero direction, Bhutiani remembers being committed to the idea, making multiple visits to Varanasi. “I spoke to people who sold wood for the funeral pyre, those who ran the hotels and even the ordinary chaiwallah. The idea was very focused… I wanted to capture the ethos of the place and how death is significant to this otherwise, colourful city.”

The film captures this culture of death with unexpected vibrancy. Rajeev is forced to take a long break from his job at an insurance company to accompany his father here: In this case, the squalid hotel — Mukti Bhuwan — where they take residence, gives Dayanand only 15 days. If he fails to die before the deadline, the hotel manager, a self-proclaimed clairvoyant pandit, takes the final call on whether he stays or leaves. As bizarre as it sounds, a hotel like this one exists in Varanasi. “I took elements from various institutions, and said, I’d become the manager of the hotel that I would create. The tabelas, akhadas and wedding banquet that surrounds the hotel in my film exist in real life. We embraced these differences to portray the varied hues of the city, rather than reject or design something new.”

Then, there is also the stellar team of Hussain and Behl, who bring alive the subtleties of the father-son relationship with so much honesty that it’s hard to tell that this story isn’t for real. Geetanjali Kulkarni and Palomi Ghosh, who play Hussain’s wife and daughter respectively, also lend naturally to the tale of a family struggling to embrace death. That Bhutiani managed to amass a powerful cast for his first film, isn’t lost to him. “When I started putting this film together, I had heard that a couple of people didn’t want to work with me because I was too young. And, I was fine with that. In fact, I am selective about who I work with because I wanted to be around people I respect and who made me comfortable, especially when it came to making important decisions or asking questions. I wanted an environment free of hierarchy,” he says.

Working on the concept of death, detachment and salvation wasn’t an easy one, insists the young filmmaker.
“You tend to make a film when you are looking for answers to certain questions. You hope that by the end of it, you get closer to understanding it [the subject]. That’s probably why I did this.”

Shubhashish Bhutiani's latest achievement is set in Varanasi and received a standing ovation in Venice
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 5, 2016)

At 25, Shubhashish Bhutiani has a degree from the New York School of Visual Arts, an Oscar-nomination (his live-action short-film, Kuch, was shortlisted for the Academy Awards-race in 2013) and last year, his quirky drama made it to top 10 from over 400 entries worldwide to be developed by La Biennale di Venezia, Italy. Now, his latest achievement, Hotel Salvation aka Mukti Bhawan, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival on September 2 and got a 10-minute-long standing ovation.

Speaking to Mirror from Venice, Shubhashish admitted that he's the laziest filmmaker ever and was amazed they had three sold-out shows. "I've wanted to write and direct since I was 16. I did a two-minute role in a play, which left the audience in splits! I found the energy electrifying but never thought I'd direct full-time. But I was born a film junkie."

Prod him on the resemblance between the title of his film and the iconic song "Hotel California" whose lyrics go "You can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave" and another soul-searching drama set in India, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and he confides that both the song and the film are his favourites but have nothing to do with the film. "The title was the result of an organic process. What death and the prelude to death mean to me is the essence and the takeaway of the film," he points out.

Set in Varanasi, Hotel Salvation is a father-son story featuring Adil Hussain, Lalit Behl, Geetanjali Kulkarni and Palomi Ghosh, along with the hotel where guests check-in believing it is the ideal place to die. Shubhashish drew extensively from four real hotels in Varanasi to portray 'Mukti Bhavan'. "The hotel is a crucial character. It is on the Ganga ghat, has a "Rules of the hotel" signboard which states that a guest must leave if he/she doesn't die in 15 days and 'no meat allowed'. There's also a bhajan room to add to the flavour," he reveals.

He's quick to point out that it's not a dark drama about death but a promising tale of life and relationships. "There's nothing morbid. It's warm and will make people laugh and cry," asserts Shubhashish, who plans to release the film soon. "It's not only made for festival audiences per se. People around the world can connect with it. I'm definitely looking for a commercial release."