Award-winning movie Barah X Barah finally has a India release date which is May 24. After having travelled several film festivals and being positively recognised there, the Gaurav Madan directorial is now ready to hit the screen. The unique moving starring Gyanendra Tripathi of Half CA and Choona fame, narrates the story of a death photographer in the city of Varanasi. Another striking point of the film is that it is one of the rare movies to be shot in a 16mm film.
Inspirations
Talking to Indulge, Madan revealed the inspiration behind the film, saying, “When I met a real death photographer during a trip to Banaras, I saw an immense cinematic potential. I instantly wanted to live a ‘film’ with him. I wanted to know how he frames his subjects, how he adjusts the exposure on his camera, where he focuses and above all how he copes with the fact that he is clicking dummies whom he can never instruct or ask to smile! I decided to weave the contemporary realities of Banaras, an ancient town stuck in a time bubble, around this character.”
Zeroing on the cast
The movie stars Tripathi, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, Harish Khanna, Bhumika Dube and Akash Sinha among others. Madan shed light on how he put together the cast, “I was sort of fixated on some actors for a couple of parts. I only wanted Geetika Vidya to play Mansi. I had seen her in Soni and met her briefly at the Mumbai Film Festival after party. When I saw Gyanendra’s audition tape I was instantly drawn to his eyes. They had this Irrfan-isque intensity. Though he looked like a regular urban guy from the exterior I was sure he had a small town boy hidden somewhere inside. I just pulled out a few scenes from the script and did a test with him. That same day Bhumika Dube arrived to audition for Meena, the protagonist’s wife. I really liked her and decided to test her and Gyanendra together. There was an apparent chemistry. We did one scene and I knew they were my Sooraj and Meena. Harish Khanna Sir is a veteran actor from NSD. I was so happy when he came on board because he, Gyanendra and Geetika actually looked like a family.”
Playing the lead
Talking about stepping into the protagonist's shoes Tripathi stated, “The profession of the character (Death photographer) excited me the most in the beginning when the audition came to me. I had never heard of this profession before so as an actor I thought it would be really exciting to explore the life of a character who deals with dead bodies throughout the day. I wanted to explore, understand and witness how this person would be when he goes back home. With what lens or perspective he sees life, relationships, responsibilities, aspirations etc.”
Success at Film Festivals
Barah X Barah has toured over 40 film festivals. Some of the notable ones include Shanghai international film festival, International film festival of Kerala, Indian film festival of Stuttgart, Indian film festival of Melbourne, Dhaka International film festival, Pune International film festival (PIFF). It has also earned the Best Director at PIFF and several other accolades. Madan recalls, “Wherever I traveled with the film I got tremendous response from the audience. The Q&A sessions were generally electric. People had so much to ask and know about the film. They were left amazed by the meditative and experiential quality of the film. Many of them quipped to me later that they weren’t familiar with the Banaras we have shown in the film and were pleasantly surprised by many nuances that were captured.”
Anecdotes from the shoot
Tripathi recalled, “No other film has provided me the opportunity and atmosphere to use my FTII training as much as this film did so I am really grateful for that.” Sharing some anecdotes from the shoot he states, “This film demanded actors and the crew to become one with the city and its people. Unlike usual shooting practice here actors were placed among local people in between their daily routine life to achieve character's motives and objectives. This process gave some magically real moments to the film and after a few days of being in this process we started to merge in the streets of Banaras like its own. There were people who consoled me while seeing me cry for a scene, there were people who pushed me out of the given mark , stopped in between the shot to ask for an address or to know time.”
On the work front besides the big release, while Madan has just written and shot a film with Abhishek Banerjee and Raghubir Yadav, Tripathi has a series of releases lined up including Superman of Malegaon, Half CA Season 2 , an independent feature called Deeva and a couple of web shows.
Stay tuned for the Barah X Barah trailer which releases today shortly.
The movie gets a theatrical release on May 24.