I have just come back after seeing Nitin Kakkar's movie 'Filmistan' at MAMI Film Festival screened at Cinemax. Nitin himself was there along with his cast and crew uniformed in blue teeshirt inscribed 'Filmistan'. The viewers after watching the movie gave standing ovation to the movie and Nitin Kakkar. Frankly,being a film critic, I normally do not impress with any movie so easily, but can say with conviction that a new star of direction has arrived in Bollywood.He should be welcomed as a game changer in Bollywood genre, who is capable of entertaining the viewers along with delivering healthy and purposeful cinema.
Not many people are aware that before the word Bollywood became famous, the Hindi film industry was termed as Filmistan, coined after the name of a film studio and a famous production house established by S. Mukherjee who branched out from legendary Bombay Talkies. Filmistan studio produced a number of hit movies during 1940s to 1950s.
Let us talk about the movie first. It is about a wannabe actor and a Bollywood fanatic Sunny Arora. A friend of him, suggested to work as Assistant Director to understand niti griti of film business instead of trying to be an actor . Friend gave example of super stars like Amir Khan, Hritik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Ranbir Kapoor who had started their filmi journey as Assistant Director.
On recommendation of his friend, Sunny Arora gets an assignment as assistant with an American crew who were shooting near the Rajasthan border. Border between India and Pakistan in the dessert area is very porous, provide opportunities to infiltrators, smugglers, terrorists and all kind of anti social elements. Sunny Arora (Sharib Hasan) is kidnapped by a Pakistani terrorist group, who cross Indian borders despite patrolling by BSF, Indian Army as well as State Police, mistaking him as an American journalist.
On recommendation of his friend, Sunny Arora gets an assignment as assistant with an American crew who were shooting near the Rajasthan border. Border between India and Pakistan in the dessert area is very porous, provide opportunities to infiltrators, smugglers, terrorists and all kind of anti social elements. Sunny Arora (Sharib Hasan) is kidnapped by a Pakistani terrorist group, who cross Indian borders despite patrolling by BSF, Indian Army as well as State Police, mistaking him as an American journalist.
The movie deals with his interactions with the terrorists as well as people of a pakistani border village and when they finally find a common ground of interest - Bollywood movies, how their conversations revolve around films and they then realise that culturally as humans we all are same.
In fact Filmistan is about power of Bollywood movies, they represent common language of India and Pakistan. It breaks artificial border and barriers of mind and a theme like this is so true to the International Film Festival like MAMI.
Arijit Dutta has given music which brings life to the movie and represent sajha culture of both the countries. The costumes designed by Payal Ashar enrich the performances by actors Sharib Hashmi, Inaamulhaq, Kumud Mishra, Saroj Sharma amongst others. A special mention for Subhransu Das who is the Director of Photography, every frame is worth an applause, deserts never looks so lovely and Sharib Hasmi as the lead has done a fabulous job bringing the character Sunny Arora to life and Inaamulhaq who plays the role of a film pirate, in the movie he says that Sunny is behaving like ‘Bombay Talkies’, an honour to era of gone by, 100 years of films and 65 years of India- Pakistan.
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| Nitin Kakkar |
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