Rohan Kanawade: Idea is to underline how reality often differs from perception

Stills from Khidkee that is shot entirely in black and whiteIt was on a sleepless bus ride from Nashik to Mumbai when Rohan Kanawade conceptualised the story of Khidkee a short film that he has just completed The 30yearold filmmaker who shot to fame at the 2016 Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival with his previous film Ektya Bhinti 2013 has taken a departure from the strong and explicit storytelling of that film to explore the LGBTQ theme rather subtly in this one The 39minute long film thats set in Mumbai tells the story through the voyeuristic eyes of its two protagonists a housewife and a screenwriter who peep into each others homes through their respective windows What they see of each other is remarkably far removed from what the audience seesThe idea is to underline how reality often differs from perception especially in matters of sexuality People see someone dress or talk a certain way and pat conclusions are drawn he says But also the story explores the idea of neighbours in a city like Mumbai how little we know of our neighbours and how its almost fashionable not to know themWhen my partner and I moved into our current apartment wed have neighbours peeping That you could say was the genesis of the thought behind Khidkee which I must clarify is entirely a work of fiction no autobiographical elements in it at all Kanawade says The story is told in two parts one from the point of view of Madhu a middleaged housewife whose life now revolves around taking care of her paralytic bedridden husband Her only distraction is Ashween a young screenwriter who lives in the opposite building who she watches through her window His overindulgence in alcohol and the constant flow of male guests raises her curiosity Ashween in turn has his own idea about Madhu from the little he sees of her life through his windowEssentially Khidkee to me is the eyes of my protagonists But theres also a third layer of voyeurism the eyes of the audience for whom the screen becomes the khidkee through which they observe both characters And what the audience sees is totally different from what my protagonists do Kanawade says The camera too is a static setup wherein only one portion of the house can be seen at a time following the eyes of the voyeur Interestingly sexuality as a theme doesnt find a loud exploration in the film However the elements are cleverly woven in in a way that they cannot be missed Ask him about the portrayal of homosexuality in regional cinema and he says I can talk about Marathi cinema and I can confidently say that there is barely any noteworthy work in this genre Thats why I want to make only Marathi films on LGBTQ subjects People ask me why I dont make films in English Why should I When you see a Marathispeaking lesbian in this film it is bound to have a stronger impact than it would in case of an English speaking one Whether we like it or not our minds are conditioned We need to show that these characters are people from our own culture and therefore must not be relegated to the other I dont want to tell stories in Hindi or English My stories will be most honest when in MarathiThe filmmaker seems to have an affinity for black and white and Khidkee much like his previous work is shot entirely in monotone There are two aspects to this he says The most boring but most honest answer is that I love black and white And honestly it is not easy to shoot in black and white because the lighting is a whole different ball game altogether But I also feel that black and white helps you concentrate on the emotions and the story because the visual distractions are less And I believe that human emotions the strongest kinds are always either black or whiteInterestingly Kanawade has had no formal training in filmmaking I studied to become an interior designer and thats what I was doing initially But I had a strong love for films and I would make random shorts in my free time Then one day a friend suggested we enter a competition but the catch was that neither of us knew how to make a technically sound film Thats when I started learning the craft through YouTube tutorials And thats how my tryst with filmmaking began says Kanawade whose banner is curiously titled Dark FilmsInitially he would only make horror films Explaining why he says You see I grew up in a chawl in Andheri and ghost stories are an integral part of chawl life yahan bhoot hai wahan bhoot hai Funny as they were they stuck in my mind and later found expression in my films The name Dark Films because they started off as horror and now they explore the dark or unseen side of human emotions