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Katiyabaaz (Powerless) is a film many are looking forward to. After Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane came out in support of the film, the eyeballs on it quadrupled. In a small cafe tucked in a tiny alley of Bandra, we caught up with filmmakers Deepti Kakkar and Fawad Mustafa who told us their entire journey through Katiyabaaz and beyond.
How did the germ of the film come to your mind?
Fawad: I was born in Kanpur. I moved out of the city when I was very young. It was only a case of me wanting to return to Kanpur. We were in Vienna at that time. We had made our previous film over there. I just convinced these people that Kanpur is the next place to be. I brought them to Kanpur and started shooting. The film was actually going to be about Kanpur alone, about an industrial city that is now crumbling apart but hasn’t changed in the last 22 years. Over time it became what it did. We realized two things; one, that electricity ties a lot of threads and dialectics together in the city and two, when we met Loha Singh, the film naturally took its own course.
Q) Coming to that, what about Loha Singh attracted you so deeply that you both went on to make a film on him?
Deepti : As Fawad said, it was love at first sight. Here was a character, you is so relatable. A vulnerable person, living in abject poverty. He lives with his mother in a small room. Yet, he projects this image of being an absolute giant. We were introduced to him as a Jaanbaaz man! He believes for a fact that he is a hero. And that duality itself was so interesting. He likes taking risks and with that he became the ideal character who sort of embodies the spirit of Kanpur. In any film, you try to show your point of view and for us it matched very well with our point of view that against all odds Kanpur still manages to not only survive but thrive. Loha, too, is the same. On one hand he is too full of himself and on another he is all warm and fuzzy. It is just that combination that attracted us.
Fawad : He is embodiment of a lot of things that Kanpur is. He is a very gritty guy and has sense of self possession and pride which is extremely Kanpuriya and the ‘Can-do’ attitude about him worked.
Q) What went into translating on screen the magnetism of Loha Singh ?
Deepti : When he was seven, his father lost his job. So Loha was sent out to work in a chai shop where he used to wash utensils from morning to night. This was his introduction to life. So he has had to battle hard to exist and that makes for his irresistible personality. When you see Loha in his jungle, that makes all the difference. There is hint of difference in this character. When this guy walks on the streets, he walks with a swagger. There is an attitude about him. You see a different side of him.
Fawad : Not knowing and the vagueness of a scene is really attractive to me. Vulnerability is really attractive for audiences. To see that character in the film, stands out for it. Real life is not about heroes and villain or pointing figures. It just rests the way it is.
Q) Cinema is a world where a common man invests his time to be sucked out the mundane-ness of their lives. So how will your film help their cause over commercial films?
Fawad : This is our homage to Bollywood. It has got songs in it, the film works in an engaging way and at the end of the day, people are interested only in good stories. In knowing more about the meaning of what the world means, a little better. I am sure this film will have audiences and that was easy to gauge from the kind of reactions we have received so far.
Deepti : One has outlandish storylines and unbelievable kicks and you have larger than life characters which are celebrated and ofcourse there is an audience for this kind of over the top storytelling. But if you have watched a film and carry something back with you, that will be based only on what your storytelling is like and narrative is like. But after MAMI and a couple of other film festivals, I can assure you people carried this film with them. The audiences are there and they are looking for alternatives. It is a challenge to reach them. It is a bigger tussle to reach this film to the theaters.
Q) Do we see you two trying to hands at a typical masala film?
Fahad: The idea of typical changes with time. What is typical today wouldn’t have been typical 10 years ago. I guess we are a part of that change in the typical.
Q) Katiyabaaz is going to clash with Mardaani from the commercial space which will obviously eat up pretty much into the business of your films. Does it bother you at all?
Fahad : I think Mardaani should be scared of us. (laughs loud)
Deepti chidingly to Fahad : Why are you throwing out quotes? (laughs)
Fahad : It is necessary to prove ourselves against Bollywood films. I think Mardaani would be a great film. It is an honor to go up against a film that has such a pertinent social issue at its heart. It will be a very important film. Box office returns are important to help us create that space for this sort of cinema. I think it will be fun
Katiyabaaz is supported by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane and is all set to release on 22nd August.
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