Add Anish Ahluwalia to the new wave
Update: Vijay just mentioned that Kya Tum Ho is Anish’s debut movie: Wow dude…mad props to you
My first time attending any film fest and boy oh boy was that an experience or was that an experience. Met all the who’s who and ” who are you” of the industry. I still pinch myself to make sure that it was not a dream. Ouch it hurts..haha. Though i would have loved to watch a lot more than i ended up doing, but every minute spent at the Arclights or the countless pints of beer at afterparty’s was something i would cherish for a longtime. Had always heard that Film Makers are easily approachable and great conversationalist at film fests and IFFLA proved it right. Be it Anurag Kashyap( He is from mars), Nishikanth kamat( OMG..such a lovable human), Uma D Cunha, Quentin Tarantino, Soumitra Ranade( I am sorry i missed his film…but a wonderful person), Sreenivas( Very sweet kid) or Anish Ahluwalia. Everyone was their for the love of cinema and it was in the air.
I loved two movies a lot at IFLLA one being Vanaja and the other, which i thought would win the grand jury and secretly prayed it would, Kya Tum Ho ( Are you there( why didn’t it have a question mark?)) directed by this down to earth, modest, honest, easy to approach amazing to talk to director anish ahluwalia
We so often talk about multiple story lines, intertwined plots making its entry into bollywood, but more often than not they have faltered. I had almost given hope on this unique way of story telling until striker mentioned that we could squeeze in 2.5 hours of our time between the movie watching mayhem. Screen 13, unlucky for some, lucky for me opens up for Kya Tum Ho. 1.5 hour into the movie oz texts me ” come”…me: ” Sorry i am liking it”
I have been hard pressed to find the right words to describe this movie…superb, amazing, awesome, great, mind blowing, complex, simple….i don’t quite know….all i know is it did me, it worked for me, i immediately had to ask 3 questions to Anish at the QandA session. One should have been at the session to realise how much everyone in the hall enjoyed the movie…felt like the questions would never stop coming. Gone are the days where everything had to be explained and reasoned…..gone are the days where 6 + 6 = 12…now maybe a mirror is placed in front of the sixes and it becomes 18. take this for instance
Audience: So, is rajit kapoor a pedophile?
Anish: What do you think?
i loved the simplicity with which Anish answered this….There was no concrete evidence of Rajit being a pedophile neither is a mention of he being not…..i love it….go figure it out message…love it.
The story involves the intelligent mix of real world and the virtual world. It tells how these characters under the mask of Internet bring their hidden self, how they open up in the virtual world. Tells how close they become to a screen name whom they have never met, never seen, never talked to. On one hand you have You’ve got mail which deals with a blossoming love story, on the other you’ve got Kya tum ho where the protagonists take a hiding under the guise of love for the screen handle. Its a story about a widower, a widow and a Internet cafe’ owner who want a release from their mundane life, who are looking to share something with the virtual person which they cannot with a person standing next to them.
I had an interesting conversation with Anurag the other night where he said…its only in India that we call a xyz director as technically brilliant….there is nothing like a technically sound director…he is either a story-teller or not. Bang on. Anurag says it…Anish delivers it. This guy is one hell of a story teller..there are no hiccups, no glitches, no off-tracking….the story moves like a flow of a river…There are a few metaphors in the movie which in retrospect make perfect sense…..i thought showing of metaphors to convey the emotions of a character was very intelligent addition in the process of movie making…for one because..you don’t have explain the scene and eat up the screen time….
Kya Tum Ho has an interesting cast of Rajit kapoor, Jyoti Dogra, Hemanth Kher( who is he?…he was refreshing and honest) and yatin karyekar. the entire cast fitted like tee….but, the hero of the movie undoubtedly is Anish….Had a chance to meet him up and talk for sometime….the way he speaks, explains everything, the glitter in his eyes when the word cinema is mentioned makes you feel that he is one among us….Though Kya Tum ho didn’t win the Jury award at IFFLA, i pray that it wins loads of accolades it deserves everywhere else. Anish please do what you are doing Bollywood needs you, Cinema needs you, audience needs you, PFC needs you….
I would rate this movie a solid four on a scale of 5….go watch it. Watch out for Anish Ahluwalia…..he is here to speak to you via his cinema….
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
:(( nahin nahin yeh khushi ke aansoo hain (hinglish: no no tears having fun)
oz bhai….why?
for bringing out another hidden gem that the rest of the world would not have even bothered to know about … and of course not being high on alcohol while writing the post :d
yeh film india mein aa rahi hai???????? any idea?????? kab ….when?????
Haan bhai, film yahan kab release ho rahi hai ???
Anish, u there ??
OM…dont knwo why m getting this feeling that u liked the filmmaker more than the film n so u got bowled out completely.
Nobody in India has even heard of this film. I am going to recommend it to as many fests as I can. It’s a gem. Proves that you don’t need money to make a film, just vision and grasp over telling a story.
@ Phoenix….Actually before the screening, Anish was standing right next to me, and i though of going and saying a hello…but then thought…lets first see the movie….i loved the movie…then loved the Q/A session and then i met and talked to him….and after talking to him…i loved the movie even more…so, i guess its a chain…
@Vijay…yes bhai…this should be sent to many more festivals…and should be released in India…Everyone should watch Kya Tum Ho
OM – This wasn’t your first festival, how quickly you forget that I took you to one when you first came to California!
The difference between a big, corporate festival (like the one that I took you to and will not name here) and an independent festival like IFFLA is what you noticed, a small festival put on for the passion of showing films, not to stroke the egos of the board of directors. A festival that the filmmakers are as passionate about as the volunteers. Volunteers who are passionate because they love the films.
The “access” you write about isn’t available at many festivals, only the choice few that show film for the love of showing film and allow everyone to interact on a personal level, not seperating those on the Red Carpet from those who are not…
ooops Sorry T!..i totally forgot bout that, though we saw the two most amzazing actions films ever…Election and Election Traid….i have very little knowledge of festivals… IFFLA defined a festival to me….IFFLA was like a family to me…..awesome experience..though we watched those two great films at the other fest..it was like watching in Edwards…IFFLA rocks…..wooohoooo