City on Edge

What can you expect from a Bollywood script with a car thief,a dreaded gangster,a B-grade movie producer,and a con woman? “A sugar coated black comedy,” chirps in filmmaker Pankaj Advani,43,who has just finished putting the final touches to the prints for his fourth film,Sankat City,at Ramoji Studios in Hyderabad. Advani has previously worked on lesser known films like Urf Professor and Cape Karma,that created a minor stir within film circles. Sankat City stars Anupam Kher,Kay Kay Menon with significant performances from Chunkey Pandey,Rimi Sen and a ‘three-scene role’ by Rahul Dev among others.

“The film revolves around different characters on Mumbai’s streets and it’s about their take on the city,” explains Advani. A native of Veraval,a small coastal town in Gujarat,he moved to Mumbai to try his hands in the film industry 15 years ago,starting off with writing scripts. He assisted Kundan Shah on Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa.

While shooting this film,Advani says he’s portrayed the chaos of Mumbai with subtle frames and stark,uncompromising detail. “We bared the stench and shot all day surrounded by mounds of garbage. But this film is not meant to be preachy about Mumbai. The city forms only the backdrop and it shows 12 desperate rats (characters) taking shortcuts to achieve their ambitions,affecting the lives of others,” says Advani,whose last reasonably successful film,Urf Professor in 2004,was also a black comedy shot in digital format in 16 days. His second film Cape Karma was done in 22 days.

Sankat City,a 120-minute film,has been shot on 16 mm film,which ‘adds to the grittiness of the film’ (rather than the 35 mm format) and was completed in 30 days.

Up next for him is comedy. But before that,look out for Sankat City,that releases on July 10.