Meenakshi Shedde: How movies start

Irsquove just returned from the Bengaluru International Film Festival BIFFES where I was on the jury for Indian films The festival now runs in Bengaluru and Mysuru both cities I love Bengaluru is a land of crisp morning air the gorgeous Lalbagh Gardens and elegant villas framed by frangipani trees in hifi enclaves like Palm Meadows Their society revels in caste and hierarchy as anyone else dinner invites came from the lsquoWorshipful Mayorrsquo postfest lunch was at a restaurant called ldquoBrahmin Cafeacuterdquo mdash eeks mdash where you could nonetheless eat a satisfying ldquorice platerdquo even in a swank mall Full marks for whoever invented bisi bele huli anna maddur vade masala vada ldquodegree coffeerdquo badami haalu and Mysorepak dripping in ghee Menu cards suggest culinary hamams mdash kesari bath khara bath chow chow bath mdash but of course itrsquos just how they spell rice bhat locally But nothing can beat the priceless Horlicks barfi Take that you DominoesShominoesA still from Narai Ezhudhum SuyasaridhamIt is always an honour and an education to watch movies on a jury and what struck me this time was how different the starting point of a movie can be Most assume that a movie starts with a script which then gets made into a film But there can be many other starting points for films mdash which have little to do with a script mdash such as a poem music or just a place For instance take the delightful Tamil film Narai Ezhudhum Suyasaridham Endless literally Autobiography of a Grey Hair by Manikandan K not the Kakkaa Muttai guy this one is lsquoMimicry Manirsquo It is a charming film about the friendship between a retired man and an unemployed youth that is begging to be remade Initially I had thought it was inspired by the big French hit Intouchables about the bonding between a rich paralysed aristocrat and his black jobseeking caretaker which was nominated for a Golden Globe and which Karan Johar and Guneet Monga are remaking in Hindi But Manikandan said he had not seen Intouchables and in fact the starting point for Endless was a poem by 12th century Tamil woman poet Avvaiyar titled Ariyadhu Periyadhu Iniyathu Kodiyathu Rarest Biggest Sweetest Most Excruciating in which she describes poverty in youth and loneliness in old age as being unbearable Manikandan decided to combine the two ideas in the same film The film starring lsquoDelhi Ganeshrsquo the director himself and lsquoMirchi Vijayrsquo also has superb music and singers including the lovely lsquoSecondu Leftursquo mdash directions the hero gets when going for a job interview mdash with lyrics by the directorIn the case of Raam Reddyrsquos Kannada film Thithi mdash an IndoUS coproduction that won two prizes at Locarno the Jury Grand Prize at the Mumbai Film Festival and was opening film of BIFFES mdash the starting point of the film was a place The film is about how three generations of a family respond to the death of the patriarch The film is set in Nodekopplu village in Mandya district Karnataka where the cowriter Eregowda has lived and was based on people he knew and his experiences the cast are mostly local nonprofessionals ldquoThe movie started off with the idea that this place had something special that we could adapt for cinema The place kept building the story for us in a very organic wayrdquo Reddy told the press while Eregowda added ldquoWe knew whom we would shoot and where because we wrote for the placerdquoIn contrast the film Gandu directed by Q has its origins in music This black and white film which was at the Berlin Film Festival is about the friendship between the son of a sex worker and a rickshaw driver Q was jamming with the music band Five Little Indians They came up with four or five songs they were pleased with then Q thought why not weave a film around this music ldquoSo the music was the starting pointrdquo Q once told me ldquoIt is entrenched in Bengali culture but the language of the film is electronica rap and cinema They donrsquot know what to make of me in Kolkata since itrsquos neither a Buddhadeb Dasgupta nor an Anjan Dutt kind of filmrdquo When Q came to Berlin with his team to present the film they celebrated by doing a gig at the afterparty in a hip bar in the lively Berlin suburb of Kreuzberg I knew they had come a full circleNupur Mahajan is a sum of many parts Ideas are her business even as her creative streak sees her straddle television advertising publishing radio and brands Reach her at nupurmahajanicloudcom