‘This film wouldn’t exist if FTII wasn’t there’: Eeb Allay Ooo director Prateek Vats

The film is a story of migrants in Delhi who land an unusual government job — to fight back the monkeys who haunt the government buildings of Delhi. “This building needs special attention,” says one of the protagonists pointing to Rashtrapati Bhavan. “If the monkeys were to dislodge any of those domes, the government would collapse,” he adds. ‘Eeb’, ‘Allay’ and ‘Oo’ are, literally, the unusual sounds that the men have to make to repel the monkeys.

“Only a place like the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Jamia Millia Islamia or Delhi University could have facilitated a film like this,” says Prateek Vats, the director of Eeb Allay Ooo and a student of the 2011 batch of the FTII.

“The first wave of monkey attacks starts at 8 am. They break into the offices and wreak havoc. They destroy security cameras, lights and the national flag,” says the protagonist. What the film ends up showing is what happens when the state strips marginalised people of their dignity.

“Only a place like the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Jamia Millia Islamia or Delhi University could have facilitated a film like this. These are places where you are pushed to think more and challenge the craft of filmmaking as well as what is happening around you. The kind of exposure and environment we got in FTII were paramount to this film. This film wouldn’t exist if the FTII wasn’t there,” says Prateek Vats, the director of Eeb Allay Ooo and a student of the 2011 batch of the FTII.

Vats’ alma mater is now in the grip of a fresh turmoil following violence in the campus in January over the screening of a film and an exhibition of photos related to the history of the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi issue which was objected to by the right wing organisations. The activists had entered the campus forcefully and allegedly beat up some students following which students and three members of the Right-wing organisation were arrested.

“In a situation when the FTII is in the news for all the wrong things, I would like this film to be seen as a testament to what the FTII can do to people, how it introduces us to cinema and takes out the fear of failure,” says Vats.

“When everybody tells you not to make a certain kind of film because it’s not commercially viable, it is difficult to shoot and not technologically possible, the exposure and the training at the FTII keeps you focussed at the larger picture and not get bogged down by smaller things. I hope this film adds a little bit of value to what the FTII has done to cinema in the country,” he adds.

Vats’s interest in contractual labour, which Eeb Allay Ooo explores, began at the FTII. He was there when the government started giving out class three or four kinds of jobs to contractors.

“That is a very personal experience of how people are paid just enough so that they can live and come back to work. There’s no dignity or security of jobs, which is robbing the country of a future. These people can’t plan a future. They’re too preoccupied with the present survival,” he says.