Revolutionary Road

How did you decide to make a film on MN Roy?

After Indian historian Hari Vasudevan showed me a photograph where Lenin,Gorky and Zinoviev were standing with a tall Indian,totally unknown to me,I discovered that this forgotten man was a successful Bengali nationalist of the early 20th century — an arms smuggler for the insurrection,the founder of the Mexican Communist Party,a top leader of the Communist International in Moscow,a member of the Communist Opposition Party in Berlin in the ’30s,and a party leader in India,until,finally,a forgotten man living in his little white house in Dehradun. I thought this was clearly a plot for a film.

Considering there wasn’t much material on Roy,what were the difficulties in making the film?

My documentary was based on that lack of information. I wanted to know how difficult it is to uncover a story once the official history has decided that Roy was not a major figure. So I went to Mexico,Germany,Russia and India and I looked for what remained of Roy in those countries . I met people such as a former guerrilla fighter from South America (Adolfo Gilly),the nationalist Russian leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky,a German communist opposition activist and some fascinating intellectuals close to Roy in India such as Sibnarayan Ray.

Which part of MN Roy’s life did you find the most fascinating?

Perhaps that,despite witnessing so many political events,having participated in so many revolutions and being a profoundly honest man,MN Roy has been totally erased from official history. There is a kind of tragedy there.

The film was released in France in 2007. Why has it come to India six years later?

This is still not the official release in India. The Indian Renaissance Institute held an international seminar last year in Delhi (coinciding with Roy’s 125 birth anniversary) and they proposed I show the film. I must say that I am particularly curious of the reactions of an Indian audience to my film. (The film will also be screened in Kolkata.)