Freeze Frame

The film’s working title is Letters to my father and it is still in its production stage. “I have started scripting and of course it is based on his life,but the film will focus mostly on the last three years. We have been in constant touch ever since he moved away from India,so currently I am sifting through all the data I have on hand. We have been writing to each other since my father is not an email person. Though the phone is a handy instrument,I find that letters have a certain quality to them. In the last three years,he has talked about his political exile and how he felt about it. They are emotional testimonials about what he went through,” says the JJ School of Art alumna,who is known for both his paintings and his films.

Naturally the act of wielding the camera is very different from holding the brush. “Painting is a solitary act whereas with film there is a different kind of mathematics involved. One can be more experimental with films because it involves working with many people and many ideas. It is an art to balance different views and ideas and still keep one’s integrity as director of the film intact,” says Owais,42.

Incidentally,the last time the father and son worked together on a movie — in Meenaxi:A Tale of Three Cities — it had ended in a huge row between the two on the sets of the film in Jaisalmer. The senior Husain had even gone on to say,“We are generations apart and that showed the most when we worked on Meenaxi. My metaphor would be the green parrot in a cage,while his is the crow on the garbage dump!” But Owais says that they have moved on since then. “I deeply love my father but I don’t think we saw eye to eye when it came to film-making. That’s why we decided to do our own independent ventures after that,” says Owais,who is also working on a feature film. His father too,apparently,has given his consent on making the movie. “He is happy that it is being made,” says Owais. Despite repeated attempts,MF Husain could not be reached in Qatar.