Speaking to Subhash K Jha, Tannishtha Chatterjee, one of two women on the jury to select the Indian film to send to the Oscars reveals why they chose the Marathi film Gondhal.
Hello, Tannishtha, I think you were the only woman on the jury to select the Oscar entry?
No. There was another person. Yeah, she’s a choreographer from the South. There were only two out of thirteen people. Can you imagine? And I’m the only filmmaker.
So was it a unanimous decision… this Marathi film Gondhal?
More or less, yeah. I think we were, like, you know, in the deliberation for the last two or three films, and it was almost like, this is what most of us felt.
So, which were the films that were top contenders?
Um… there was a very interesting film called Angh, which I personally thought was very, very interesting, and it’s by a first-time filmmaker from Nagaland. The Tamil film Dorothy was a very strong subject and bold. Somewhere, it has to be a breakthrough of some kind. Yeah, finally, it’s always a little difficult when you have so many films, you know, and Bahut achchi filmen thi. There were also commercial films like Bison and Dhurandhar.
Would you say that the films listed this year were worthy of going to the Oscars, at least some of them?
I am not allowed to officially speak about these things, so I don’t know how to comment on that, like see, we have to choose the best possibility from the given, from whatever’s come to us, and which also everybody agrees to, and there are a number of things, like how does it represent India, Indian cinema. What would it make us look like? Is it a derivative form of art, like, you know, what we were looking at, is that original Indian cinema, because, you know, a lot of films are also very aspirational of Hollywood…you know, that kind of fight sequence. So what we are looking at is that what is original cinema language and what are our concerns, you know our music, our cinema.
So Gondhal was selected keeping all this in mind?
It represents our culture. But it wasn’t selected for that reason alone. Not because Gondhal is a folk Marathi form and we are trying to do cultural propagation. It has to be deserving also. It’s a very interesting thriller, and the performances, especially that girl, Ishita Deshmukh, oh my God! Hard to believe it’s her first film. She’s so good. The film is definitely for the big screen. So, you know, there are many considerations. It’s not, you know, whether a film is good or bad, but it is also like good or bad is so relative. I’ve been on a few juries now, and I think to some extent it’s also luck where suddenly, you know, all the jury members feel it is this one. Sometimes it’s because we are also coming from our own personal biases and our personal tastes.
There’s a lot of talk about Dhurandhar not being chosen. What do you have to say about that?
Dhurandhar is a popular film, and one can’t deny the fact that you know so many people have embraced it, and there is, there is, there is something about that film. But like I said that when we are looking at representation from India, we look at a cinematic language which is more original. So that’s, that’s where I feel like Dhurandhar is a very sleek and well-made film. But is it, is it an original Indian cinematic language? That’s the question. It borrows from different cinematic styles which is, which is fine, which is fantastic. But you know when, when you discover a film like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and you discover a filmmaker like Ang Lee. That is when we have a film taking to the global level. When you discover a film like Asghar Farhadi, you get to know what Iranian cinema is like. So those things, I mean, we are also looking for those things.
And Gondhal fitted the bill?
Gondhal, I would say, is a very interesting film which takes you to a novel experience and an unexplored world. That we haven’t seen before. And the whole film is shot at night. And the first shot is for twenty minutes. I mean it is, it’s very seamlessly done.
Do you think it stands a fighting-fit chance of getting us the Oscars?
I don’t know, man. This is a very difficult question. It is not only about cinema anymore. And it’s a lot about marketing and lobbying. We all know that. It is a lot about so many things. It’s about what is politically relevant at that point of time.The thing that I felt about the film and which all the jury members felt, that it was rooted. It was genuine. The performances are very believable. You believe that those are real characters. I wish it would bring us the Oscar.
