Neha Maheshwri (BOMBAY TIMES; September 12, 2020)

Rajat Barmecha, who was noticed for his acting debut in Udaan (2010), is now exploring other creative aspects of filmmaking. He has penned the script of a film, which he claims will be India’s first backpacking movie. In a chat with BT, he talks about the inspiration behind his script. Excerpts...

While you have had outings in the digital space, one has not seen you on the big screen for a long time. And now, you have penned the script for a film. Tell us about it...
It’s a travel film. In India, we have never had an authentic backpacking film. Yes, we have had an iconic movie like Dil Chahta Hai (2001), which is about three friends who travel to Goa, but that’s about it. Anyone, who has heard or done backpacking, will completely relate to this film.

How did this story come about?
For the first year after Udaan, there wasn’t much happening, and things didn’t shape up the way I had expected them to. During that time, I saw a film called Into The Wild. It motivated me so much and made me realise that there is life beyond just cinema, work and money. So, I started backpacking solo. This was in 2015, and since then, most of my trips have been solo. The script comes from personal experiences — the people I have met, and the stories they have told me.

What inspired you to give writing a shot after acting?
The credit for it goes to Vikram’s (Udaan director Vikramaditya Motwane) mom, Deepa aunty. After the film, whenever she would meet me, she would ask me, ‘What’s happening next?’ And I would tell her that while I was getting offers, nothing interesting had come up. So, she told me, ‘If you can’t find the work that you are looking for, create it for yourself’.

Have you finalised the cast for your film? Will you act in it?
At its core, this is a love story. I would like to essay the lead character, because I created it for myself. The girl opposite me has to be a foreigner because that’s the demand of the script. I have a couple of Spanish actors in mind, but I haven’t approached anyone yet. I am in the process of registering the script, which has been delayed because of the pandemic.

Rajat Barmecha, the wonder boy of Udaan, reveals that backpacking around the world for five years helped him deal with lack of film offers
Ankita Chaurasia (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 2, 2020)

Seventeen-year-old Rajat Barmecha came to Mumbai chasing fame, success, and money. Within six months of landing Udaan, filmmaker-mentor Vikramaditya Motwane had him hooked on world cinema and acting. His turn as a boy torn between an angry father’s expectations while still nurturing his dream of writing, fetched him rave reviews, along with invites to every award ceremony and Bollywood party for the next year-and-a-half. “Everywhere I went, I was being complimented for my performance. As a 21-year-old actor, it gave me hope. I read every script that came my way, but they were all mediocre, formulaic films or those in which I was there throughout, but added no value. I couldn’t afford to do a bad film because then, I’d be written off as a one-film wonder,” points out the actor, who eventually stopped attending events. “People, from distant relatives to the media, wanted to know what I was doing next.”

He received high praise from the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Anushka Sharma and Ranbir Kapoor, along with some A-list filmmakers. “But on the red carpet, those with no project to their name but coming from a film background were clicked more than me, while the producers who had praised my work earlier, did not recognise me,” he grouses.

Desperate for money, Rajat then started taking up offers which he didn’t particularly like and was beginning to feel lost in this jungle, when in 2015, he happened to watch the Emile Hirsche-starrer 2007 Hollywood biographical adventure drama, Into The Wild. He started travelling, too, and slowly got out of the dark phase. After five years of backpacking around the world, he decided to script a film he would be proud to be a part of. “Vikramaditya sir’s mother, Deepa aunty, who was the executive producer of Udaan, had once told me, ‘If you don’t find the kind of projects you want to do, make them.’ Her words had stayed with me, but I didn’t want to make something I wasn’t sure of,” Rajat recounts.

A raw and real travel film finally prompted him to turn writer. “I started scripting last year, but was being lazy. The Coronavirus lockdown gave me ample time to complete it. After I register the script, I will share it with Vikramditya sir and a few other friends,” he reveals, adding that he will play the lead in this love story with a foreigner opposite him.

Dhaval Roy (DNA; September 15, 2018)

Love Sonia has just released in India and its director Tabrez Noorani is excited to bring the tale of human trafficking to a wider audience.  “It’s like the line from Life of Pi (2012) — ‘The story’s yours now’. This one belongs to the viewers and I am making them a part of the journey that may not be an easy one,” he says. However, the Hollywood producer (Slumdog Millionaire, 2008; Eat Pray Love, 2010 and more) and now debutant director hopes that cinegoers will leave the cinema hall with hope and a ray of light after seeing the courage of the characters and real-life survivors. The filmmaker talks to us about the challenges of making the movie and more.

The idea of Love Sonia believably germinated in 2003 when  you worked towards rehabilitating human trafficking victims. What took the film so long to make?
It’s taken a lot of time for various reasons — the tough topic, money, casting and not having stars attached to the project. We ran into a wall because there was no one to fund a movie about human trafficking at that point of time. We wanted to be in the business with the right people and not someone who would exploit the film. So, I refused to compromise and let someone milk the situation. We also had to be extremely careful that we were respectful to the victims and honest to the subject. After all, these were girls I have known and helped rehabilitate. So, it’s been a tough journey but definitely worth it.

Tell us about casting for the film...
I had to chase Richa Chadha and Manoj Bajpayee both. Richa didn’t know me from Adam and I refused to do a script narration because I don’t know what that means. I sent her a draft and she wanted to make sure that the one she read was the same that I would make. But once we started talking, she became more confident about me as a filmmaker and then she took the script to another level. I just got extremely lucky that everyone came on board.

Didn’t you feel the film was getting too delayed?
I’m glad I didn’t make this earlier because the research continued and I kept developing the characters. After the first season of Sense8, I decided to stop producing and focus on this project.

In spite of having produced a number of big Hollywood flicks, why didn’t you venture into direction earlier?
I wanted to debut with this film. I believe for your first outing you need to make something that you feel passionately about. I had other offers, but I felt anyone else could have directed those films but no one could have done this one.

With realistic cinema, filmmakers can often get self-indulgent. How did you ensure that didn’t happen with your movie?
Yeah, self-indulgence was one of the biggest concerns for me. And that’s why I had members of the NGOs as well as trafficked girls on the sets in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and India. Survivors were also involved in the scripting and editing processes and we made a conscious effort to not exploit the exploited. Once both parties saw the film, it was a validation that we navigated the land very well.

With many so-called parallel films doing well in India these days, do you think it’s a good time for stories like Love Sonia?
Absolutely! I think the audience here has been more open to different kinds of films of late — more than they were, say, three to five years ago. India is making such fantastic cinema, whether it’s a large film like Padmaavat (2018) or a low-budget one like Titli (2014). People here want to go see Stree and a Gali Guleiyan releases at the same time, too.

Which films have impressed you of late?
I thought Titli was an outstanding movie. Udaan (2010), Masaan (2015), Anurag Kashyap’s works, and the Marathi film Fandry (2013) were quite impressive.

What’s next? Would one have to wait too long for another film from you?
Hopefully not. I’m working on two films and they will be very different from this one.

Apart from human trafficking, is there another cause you’d like to make a film on?
That’s an interesting question, but I haven’t thought about it. Anyway, this work won’t end after the release of the project. Trafficking is a massive problem all over the world and I can do anything to help tackle it — even if I have to disguise it in the form of a movie, I would do it because down the line, it will create awareness.

Director Vikramaditya Motwane on Phantom’s upcoming films and revisiting his debut drama
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 20, 2017)

After Mirror ran a story on April 6 about a young woman working at Phantom Films, alleging that she was supposedly molested by Vikas Bahl, director of the highly acclaimed Kangana Ranaut-starrer Queen, the events at Bollywood’s hipster film production company revealed a sordid murkiness. And even though Vikas denied the reports, rumours had been rife that it is only a matter of time before the Phantom quartet — Vikas along with filmmakers Madhu Mantena, Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap — which co-founded their banner in 2011, disbands.

However, Udaan and Lootera director Vikramaditya says that Phantom is very much in the business of making movies, and is looking ahead at multiple upcoming films. “Phantom is working on a horror-specific slate with Blumhouse Productions and Ivanhoe Pictures this year and we have already gone into production with the films. It’s something we are producing at the moment for sure,” he says.

Looking at India’s growing craze for the genre, the multiyear partnership had been struck with Jason Blum, the producer of acclaimed Hollywood horrors, Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Insidious and Sinister, in September 2014, which included at least 10 films over the next five years in local languages. “I’m producing these films for now, and I would love to direct a horror under the banner too. I love horror films because they’re a great challenge with the casting. It’s all about the timing and how to get the scares,” the writer-director says.

This week also marks seven years since the release of Vikram’s debut drama, Udaan, which picked up a whopping seven awards at the 56th Filmfare Awards. Prod him on whether there’s a sequel in the pipeline and Vikram says that he has an idea and will revisit it with a script soon. “It will be a continuation, 10-12 years after the original ended. I always thought I had so much time to start writing Udaan 2, and now I realise that seven years have flown by and I’ll have to get to it,” he smiles.

On July 22, his last release, the critically-acclaimed and box-office success, Trapped, featuring Rajkummar Rao as the claustrophobic hero of the survival-drama, is having its world television premiere on &Pictures. And Vikram, who didn’t have to make any TV friendly cuts to his U/A release, is excited about the responses the film could receive. “At a cinema hall, there’s a claustrophobic vibe but when you’re watching Trapped in your own house, I hope the viewer is able to tap into the familiarity of the situation, looking at the door constantly and checking if it’s got locked. That would be pretty damn scary!” he says, adding that the film has great potential for a franchise and he is eager to receive scripts to develop the film into a series. “Trapped was a challenging project and there’s no extravagance anybody can bring to it. But with more dream sequences, and taking it outside a flat and into an airport or a jungle can take the whole scale of the film to a completely different level. An urban Cast Away-like franchise,” he says.

The actor-director siblings have had chequered careers. While Ronit Roy has revived his film career, Rohit is hoping to build a new one behind the camera
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 30, 2017)

At present, the Roy brothers are in a “comfortable space”. Apart from being one of the biggest names in the television industry, Ronit has been praised for his performances in critically-acclaimed films such as Udaan, Ugly and Kaabil, while Rohit has refashioned himself as a filmmaker and will helm the next Sanjay Leela Bhansali production.

Growing up in Ahmedabad, Ronit had earned the moniker ‘Kumar Gaurav of Ahmedabad’ but Rohit remembers him as the most flamboyant man in town. “You need money for that. I was only an extrovert,” says Ronit, before he is corrected by Roy junior, “You can be Jackie Shroff from Teen Patti, so you can be flamboyant without money.” He also adds that his elder brother also had the reputation of being a “quintessential naughty boy”. “If I got into a scuffle in Ahmedabad and they came to know I was Ronit’s brother, they’d run away,” he says.

Rohit, who was preparing for his MBA when his brother bagged his feature film debut in Jaan Tere Naam (1992), remembers visiting him during a song shoot at Andheri Sports Complex. “He was in swimming trunks and the actress was in a ridiculous purple bikini and they were jumping in and out of the pool. I returned home to tell my mom that her son was doing sleazy films, wearing just a chaddi.”

Ronit signed 40 films following his debut, “of which, 25 producers never showed up, 15-16 went into production, 13 got made, half didn’t release and the ones that did, flopped.” He continues, “I wanted to be a hero when I came to Mumbai and all the trappings that came with it — big house, big car and girls running after me. I got all that with Jaan Tere Naam and then I lost it too. Now, I want to become an actor, and not a star,” says Ronit, who will be next seen in Sarkar 3. “May be, I signed the wrong films. When you’re 26, you don’t know any better.”

Ronit, who won a Filmfare Award for his performance in Udaan, eventually turned to television as a means of keeping his acting career alive. He began with a show opposite Bhagyashree before Ekta Kapoor cast him in Zee TV’s Kammal in 2000 and later in Kasautii Zindagii Kay and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi in 2002. “I was initially paid Rs 2,500 a day. I felt that if I could make Rs 50,000 a month, it would pay for food, rent, alcohol and mobile bills.” Instead, Ronit became an overnight primetime success. From 2002 to 2010, he worked on a minimum of three TV shows every year and “couldn’t spare time for films”.

Rohit, who admitted to scoffing at his brother’s profession initially, was left adrift when his US visa was rejected in 1992. Prior to his entrance test at Symbiosis, Pune, a chance meeting with Kunal Kapoor, an advertising maverick then, resulted in a move to agency life and he reluctantly strayed into modeling too. “Anant Balani, who had made Patthar Ke Phool, saw my photographs, which were terrible, and called me for a screen test, which was even worse. But he liked it and that’s how I got my first film with Suchitra Krishnamoorthi called Jazbaat which never released,” says Rohit.

A year later, Rohit shot to fame with his TV debut in Swabhimaan. “I was rejected during my audition by Shobhaa De, who wrote the show. She felt I was ‘too MTV’ to play Rishabh Malhotra. She wanted someone like Mohnish Behl, but younger. Later, Mahesh Bhatt, one of the makers, spotted me while going through the rejected auditions, and because of my red jacket he placed his bets on me,” he says.

The Roy brothers’ up and down relationship with success caused some problems for their mother too. “During Swabhimaan, when Ronit was totally out of work, people would tell my mother, ‘we saw the show, but bada beta kya kar raha hain?’ Then, the same phase came in my life in 2013-2014, and they’d ask her, ‘we watch Adaalat but chota ladka kya kar raha hain?’” Rohit says with a laugh.

These days, Rohit has chosen to get behind the camera because it is something he had “always planned to do” but was also in part due to his stuttering acting career. Rohit says he has made peace with the fact that he is “not a star”.

As it happens, Ronit will be playing the lead in the Bhansali love story that Rohit will direct. The younger Roy shares his first choice for the lead was Naseeruddin Shah. “I hated Ronit’s work in Jaan Tere Naam even though the film made him a star. But when I saw him in Udaan, I cried and then I saw him as the gritty cop in Ugly and I was sure that only he could play the character I had in mind.”

So the next time someone asks their mother what the brothers are doing, the answer will be easy.

Vikramaditya Motwane, on why he will make fringe festival films, but doesn’t want to be identified as a director who does
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; October 12, 2015)

When Vikramaditya Motwane, a man who got recognised and hailed for the slim-budgeted indie film, Udaan — which went onto pique curiosity at international film fests, and even swept trophies at one of India’s biggest mainstream film awards — says he doesn’t want to be called a “festival film director”, we think that odd. It’s odder still because of the timing. The 38-year-old’s last film as producer was another indie — the 2015 release, Masaan (Crematorium), which received a rare standing ovation at Cannes.

Let’s add another irony. His last commercial, non-festival film, Lootera, starring marquee names Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha, was a visual treat but declared one of 2013’s biggest flops.

“A ‘festival’ tag, sometimes, alienates your audience. It’s hard for smaller, indie movies. They not only have to be good, but very good. That’s the only way word of mouth will work, and draw people into the halls,” he explains.

It’s a little while before indie movies do well at the box office, if they ever do. It’s a game of “should” vs “would”, he thinks. “Of course, multiplexes should play more of the smaller films, and for longer, but will they? Most probably not,” he says.

But festivals like Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) have been ambassadors for small budget cinema. Motwane has directed this year’s MAMI campaign film, which sees film personalities from the industry narrate their connection with the city of dreams. At Phantom’s Oshiwara office, we are discussing why we need film fests to showcase a niche film like Masaan.

Masaan (directed by Neeraj Ghyawan, who assisted Kashyap on Gangs of Wasseypur), although critically acclaimed and a poignant love story played out against the ghats of Benaras, was released in theatres immediately after the success at Cannes, it barely managed to recover costs.

Motwane chooses to laugh in self-deprecation. “We released it in France and Belgium too, but they were having a ‘good’ summer, and so, no one went to the movies. Everyone was at the beach.”

Behind the humour is a lesson learnt and filed away. A sharper budget, a better name could’ve helped. “How do you sustain a marketing campaign for less? How do we distribute better? How can we go bigger internationally?” These are the questions that Motwane and his partners, Vikas Bahl, Anurag Kashyap and Madhu Mantena, of Phantom are asking. Even the cult-classic, Bombay Velvet, made on a budget of Rs 84 crore, proved teacher.

“Research said that people didn't come for the movie because they didn’t like Ranbir’s hair! The trailer was all wrong, too,” says Motwane, bluntly. “And once again, it’s about spending less, always spending less.”

Phantom’s next release, Shaandaar is a masala film with popular names — Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhatt — set against the big fat Indian wedding. Its over-the-top song picturisation and larger-than-life romance is a fry cry from Masaan’s middle-class setting. It’s a film that the trio hopes will rake in the money to help them continue to “make movies we love to make.” He is aware that what they need is a robust business model. “Of course, you want to make profits, you want to grow with every film. We have realised we don’t want to restrict ourselves to one kind of movie. We want to make movies for everyone.”

And so, Phantom’s indie spirit will continue to glow in Abhishek Chaubey’s next story about the drugs business in Punjab. Anurag Kashyap’s directorial next is, says Motwane, a small film, as is his own, AK vs SK starring Shahid Kapoor.

“With these [indie] movies, you don’t think let's-make-money. Neeraj Ghaywan’s career has taken off post it, and Phantom has grown. Sometimes, the investment return is not about money but brand equity,” he explains.

Motwane is optimistic about the independent film scene. In the last year, Marathi film Killa, Bengali film Labour of Love and Tamil movie Kaaka Muttai have all seen critical success. “It’s been a good year, won’t you say? It will only grow from here,” he says. “You can’t compare them to the big movies like Bajrangi Bhaijaan. But once in a decade, an indie film comes and breaks through that ceiling.” Let’s hope that’s coming soon.

Rajat Barmecha who played a troubled teen in Udaan will now be seen in Warrior Savitri, which he says is a 'commercial film with action and erotica'
Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 3, 2015)

Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 24, 2014)

"Do ishq ki ijaazat, ilzaam ab hatado... Hum gair hain nahin, Ek baar to jatado..."

(Let love be my right, no longer a crime. Accept us as your own, for cnce atleast)

Satyanshu and Devanshu Singh, the brothers who penned the poems which Rajat Barmecha's character recites in Vikramaditya Motwane's Udaan, are back in the spotlight. But this time with not just a verse in a movie, but a movie.

The duo has directed a five-minute short film, Ishq Ki Ijaazat, which premiered online on Monday.

It revolves around a young lesbian duo, an old gay couple and a transgender with a lover. "We wanted to enter their homes and show the world that they're as normal as the rest of us. My brother had written the poem a while ago which we recently found in his diary. We couldn't get a more relevant topic to underline the discrimination against the LGBT community," says Devanshu.

The duo, being mentored by Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap, approached Huma Qureshi to do the voiceover. "We felt her voice had the right nazakat. We were sure we wanted a female voice for the soulful poem," he explains.

All the artistes and technicians have worked for free. Shekhar Kapur-AR Rahman's company, Qyuki, have produced the film and mobilised support online. "They have given us complete creative freedom as far as the film's content goes," Devanshu added.

What next? "Between Udaan and Ishq Ki Ijaazat, we made a 30-minute short film Tamaash which won the National Award, but nobody had the patience to watch it," he laughs.

"We've now written a script about a couple who despite difficult circumstances, cut a cake on their little boy's birthday. Both Anurag and Vikram have liked it and have asked us to direct. It will be our feature film debut and will be produced under their banner."