Custom Made

Since it has been produced and directed without the backing of any major production house,Srinivasan’s cast does not boast of big names,and stars mostly NSD alumni like Dibyendu Bhattacharya of Dev D fame,Avtaar Sahni,newcomer Saba Joshi and Geeta Bisht. “I auditioned about 600 people for the characters,” he remarks.

In the 99-minute feature,the protagonist is not the torch-bearer of customs in the traditional sense. Srinivasan insinuates the latent submissiveness in his protagonist Bhanu Kumar,(played by Bhattacharya) a watchman at an abandoned silica mine,who obediently sits guard at the entrance of the mine,and is duty bound to his master’s wishes. His wife,on the other hand,constantly rants about his subservience to his master,but in vain. The clash of cultures is highlighted in the form of a young runaway couple who comes to the mines,seeking refuge from a contract killer who has been sent after them. “This watchman is forced to make certain choices which challenge his views of obedience to tradition,versus the demands of a modern society— whether to sneak the couple inside and face the tyranny of his master or to send them away. By the time he realises the consequences of his decisions,it becomes too late,” explains Srinivasan,35,puffing on his cigarette. The film has been shot on real locations,like an abandoned silica mine in Surajkund,and in the neighbouring Aravalli ranges hugging the outskirts of Delhi,including the Faridabad-Gurgaon link road. “The idea was to portray a different landscape of Delhi,so I shifted the gaze to the NCR,which has been neglected in films about Delhi. These are real stories,which touch upon the notions of land,property disputes,rapid urbanization,illegal land acquisitions,honour killings that are facing several people in these areas today,” says Srinivasan,who took three years (2007-2010) to complete the film.

The idea for the film came to him while he was researching in the Aya Nagar area of South Delhi in late 2007,for a social documentary called An Outpost of Delhi. “Seeing the rapid developments and the consequences left in its wake,I was tempted to make a film on this subject,” says Srinivasan,who passed out of St Stephens in 1997. He made his first documentary,The Tightrope Walker,in 2000,which was screened in the competition section of the Venice Film Festival,the same year. He dabbled in Bollywood by directing a horror film,Amavas,in 2004,starring Konkana Sen,Victor Banerjee,but unfortunately it never released,so he returned to the world of independent cinema.

But the bug for genre cinema remained,which is reflected in Souls of Sand,which uses a combination of arthouse and genre cinema elements. “I am guided by the use of counterpoint. For instance,though the locations in the film are exquisite and grand,it becomes the setting of carnage and mayhem. The film also shuttles between references to tradition and the pressures of modernity,” he describes. After the screening at Toronto,the film travels to the Rotterdam Film Festival,in Amsterdam,in January. “There would be nothing bigger than releasing the film in India. But for now I want the film to gain some momentum on the festival circuit,” he says.