SHABIHA NUR KHATOON, OP
The brain behind acclaimed films revolving around children and their dreams and aspirations, Amole Gupte, the creative director of Taare Zameen Par, and director of Stanley Ka Dabba and Hawaa Hawaai, is back with his next film, Sniff, a spy thriller around a Sikh boy, played by eight-year-old Sunny Gill, who has special olfactory powers. Sniff is co-produced by Eros International and Trinity Pictures. In an interview with Sunday POST the director talks about his cinematic inspirations and passions.
How did Sniff come to you?
The concept was first pitched by Radhika Anand, one of the four young writers, and we were brought together under one umbrella by Ajit Thakur, the CEO of Trinity Pictures. When Radhika narrated her concept of a little boy who could not smell, she had placed the story at Karol Bagh in Delhi.
Once I heard the script I really liked it and I told her to write it but she couldn’t. Ajit said that we couldn’t let go of a topic like this and instantly asked me to give it a shot. I was not sure whether I could do justice to someone else’s idea. However, he was persistent. So with everyone’s consent I started to work on the film and that’s how it all started.
All your protagonists are children. Why?
I like to focus on the problems kids face whether in school, at home or outside. There is a great divide between children and adults in our nation. As there is one-way communication from top to bottom, there is no friendship between kids and adults and no understanding as to what goes on in the mind of a kid. So, I try to do children-centric films in order to raise the issues that directly concern kids and my protagonists are naturally children.
In all your movies we see a boy playing the lead role. Why not a girl protagonist?
You caught me right (laughs). I want to correct that myself and my next movie will surely have a girl child angle.
What message did you want to convey through Sniff?
My expectations are that I feel parents should watch my movie with their family as it’s a universal film. People have different conceptions about children’s films. Children’s films are not meant for cats and dogs, they are made for viewers. In fact in the name of children’s films many idiotic films are made. Some sensible stuff with intelligent children participating in a story which will baffle you and it goes into the genre of spy thriller. I would like to tell the nation: please come out with your children and family because very rarely you see a ‘U’ certificate film and fortunately for regional cinema good films are made.
Do you mean that regional cinema is better than the Hindi film industry?
Of course, I have no doubt about it. The content is so rich in regional cinema. You should be proud of your language and literature. Right from the 1960s and 70s you have had cutting edge cinema. You have commercial and cultural regional cinema, which are hugely popular. That is a lesson to be learnt as you can’t keep chanting entertainment all your life. I am sitting in the under 18 age group, so I am very careful what is being said or shown in my films because they are meant for the consumption of children.
Don’t all your kid stars miss their school and studies when they are shooting?
No, my films are like a workshop. We don’t take them out of school hours, we generally shoot during weekends. No child in my film skips their classes. We are very careful about children and their education. On the sets of reality shows the children are kept in vanity vans and are pumped up on chocolates. My movies are like an annual play and we don’t want that kids should miss their childhood under the hectic schedule of shooting. Education is the most important thing in life and we can’t sacrifice it at the altar of shooting.
