Sulemani Keeda,which premiered at the Mumbai Film Festival,is a slacker comedy on screenwriters
Masurkar says that most movies based on the film industry are either about aspiring actors or directors; nobody talks about writers.
WHAT makes a 20-year-old pursuing engineering quit midway and make films? Sulemani Keeda,the title of Amit V Masurkar’s debut independent feature film,could well be the answer. “It means great passion,but it can also mean a pest,something annoyingly clingy,” says Masurkar. The old Bambaiyya phrase encapsulates the spirit of his first film that tells the coming-of-age story of two struggling screenwriters in Mumbai. The film premiered in the “New Faces of Indian Cinema” category at the recently-concluded 15th Mumbai Film Festival (MFF).
Masurkar says that most movies based on the film industry are either about aspiring actors or directors; nobody talks about writers. Mumbai’s western suburbs of Oshiwara and Versova,which has a burgeoning number of “migrant writers” and rookie filmmakers is often overshadowed by city cliches of the dazzling Marine Drive or the ghettoed bylanes of Bhendi Bazar in movies.
The 32-year-old director insists that the film isn’t autobiographical,but the characters are drawn from people he has met or known in real life. In Masurkar’s world,Twitter and world cinema are a part of the lingo,as much as Sahir Ludhianvi’s poetry. Doing the rounds of big film studios,the boys seek out girls in book stores and hold poetry-reading sessions in this “Versova indie” film.
Sulemani Keeda shows three days in the lives of Mainak (Mayank Tewari) and Dulal (Naveen Kasturia),writing partners and flatmates,who discover themselves as they go through a series of personal and professional escapades. “Although I have used a popular template,the characters are not stereotypical,cardboard cut-outs. They behave like modern,urban people,” he says.
Although replete with inside references and film industry jokes,Sulemani Keeda is a universal story. It takes the narrative path of a slacker comedy,a popular film genre. It is light-hearted and funny with the director’s assured touches,for instance,an animated set-piece that shows a pet cat snort cocaine and kill itself in a fish bowl.
“Most people take their first film way too seriously. About three years ago,I was going through the same phase,stressing over the subject. While spending New Years in Goa,I decided to make this film,” says the director whose first writing stint was with the Great Indian Comedy Show,a sketch comedy act featuring Ranveer Shorey and Vinay Pathak. Directing the “Making of” film for Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex aur Dhokha marked his foray into films.
Created on a shoestring budget,they made the most of their resources,from using the director and the producer’s homes for shoots to casting Masurkar’s friends in the film,besides actor Aditi Vasudev (who plays Dulal’s love interest) and a few others. Masurkar hopes the film’s reception at MFF will push its fortunes to get a proper release. Currently,in talks with several studios,he expects the film to have a big release in early 2014.
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