Courage Under Fire

The film has Kolkata-based theatre actor Suprat Dutta playing Madholal,who works in the commercial district of Mumbai who and lives with his family in a chawl. Delhi-based theatre actress Swara Bhaskar,25,executes the role of Madholal’s daughter in the film. “It was difficult to speak Hindi in the Mumbaikar style,so I asked my maid to read my dialogues out to me,” says Bhaskar,for whom this is a second acting project.

But the train blasts are merely the backdrop,adds Tank. “I could have used the recession. The focus is on the resilience of the human spirit and the manner in which Madholal comes to term with his fate,” he continues. The film was screened at the Atlanta Film festival in April and Tank will take it to the Sao Paolo Film festival later this week.

Almost two hours long,Madholal.. was shot in 27 days at real locations such as a chawl in Kandivali and the trains of Church Gate and Borivali. The film was made on a budget of Rs 2.5 crore and Tank is planning to launch it in theatres in March-April.

Tank is based in Mumbai and set up his production house Dream Cuts in 2000. He has directed several television commercials and corporate film projects,as well as a social-documentary in 2007. Called Voices from the Bottom of the Pyramid ,it dealt with the impact of consumer durable goods on the rural masses and received the Leo Intel award for social awareness.

Tank was searching for a local theme as the subject for his debut feature film when the Mumbai blasts happened. “I had an employee who did not come to work for over a month after the blasts even though he was unscathed. He was badly shaken up,” says the filmmaker,who travelled for months on local trains meeting commuters to research the subject.