Monks act, taxi drivers produce films in Ladakh

Two films about making movies are being screened in the city this evening. one tracks Himmesh as he shoots in Germany, the other looks at how grocery shop owners in ladakh have turned filmmakers

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Monks act, taxi drivers produce films in Ladakh

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Two films about making movies are being screened in the city this evening. one tracks Himmesh as he shoots in Germany, the other looks at how grocery shop owners in ladakh have turned filmmakers

German filmmaker Gabriele Ammermann had seen film shoots in Mumbai before she shot The Making of Aap Kaa Surroor. "I knew that the Indian way of making feature films is quite different from the German approach. It's more spontaneous and flexible, and so are prices and work shifts," she says cheekily in an email interview to Mid Day. So, when singer-actor Himesh Reshammiya visited her home country with a desi squad of 80 to shoot his baby Aap Kaa Surroor, Gabriele wanted to be there. "Never before had an Indian film of this size been shot there. I expected culture shock, and I wasn't disappointed! What I had not expected was the mutual respect for each other's work and culture. I captured the friendships that grew between the actors, technicians, drivers, dancers and spot boys of both nationalities," she recalls.

The documentary follows the shoot for a whole month. Shot with only a handheld MiniDV camera, it shows everyday life on set. The desi crew suffers in Germany's cold winter. Locals get their first taste of chai.

"Gabriele has made a highly enjoyable, affectionate film which manages to portray the ridiculous working methods of Bollywood, milking them for humour without becoming offensive or superior," says Paromita Vohra who is curating the screening at Alliance Franu00e7aise for the documentary filmmakers' collective, Vikalp.u00a0

Singer-actor Himmesh Reshammiya (centre) with his crew during the making of Aap Ka Surroor in Germany

Ladakh's local film movement

While Gabriele was intrigued by the confluence of the German and Indian film crew, Samreen Farooqui and Shabani Hassanwalia of Hit and Run Films had a desire to capture something closer home but just as surrealu00a0a subterranean, local film movement in Ladakh. Today, taxi drivers and grocery store owners, cops and monks, are producers-directors-camerapersons-actors of one of youngest, and most dynamic, local film industries in the world.

Says Samreen, "We went to Leh as part of a crew for a film by Sanjay Barnela. At the market, we saw Ladakhi film posters. We asked a shopkeeper where these films are made and he said: 'Why? We make them here. I've produced this film, and that boy in the other shop is the lead actor.' After this, there was no looking back.

A still from Out of Thin Air, a film about Ladakh's local film industry

Ladakh was no more a postcard." The duo made Out of Thin Air.

Samreen talks about how wonderfully Bollywood ties us all together. "Ladakhis are surrounded by monolithic barren mountains but they'll shoot their songs in the Poplarand Weeping Willow green patches they have planted. They even get the DDLJ-type shots in the middle of a lunar crater. We travelled to the edge of the world and found somebody who watched Kuch Kuch Hota Hai seven times. And he is a monk!"

Today, Vikalp@Alliance will screen The Making of Aap Kaa Surroor and Out of Thin Air, 6.30 pm onwards at Theosophy Hall, Alliance Franu00e7aise, 40 New Marine Lines, next to Nirmala Niketan College.
Call: 22036187