In a world that’s spinning on reels and images are a flood, filmmaker Imtiaz Ali has learnt to take a “digital pause” and redefine storytelling the way it should – as an observer, with a simple camera, absorbing life as it happens, unfiltered by judgement or embellishment. Ali didn’t set out to be a filmmaker. Growing up on haunting images of photojournalists, he realised the power of distant observation in shaping narratives, a skill that he honed while travelling as a student on trains. In fact, it has been during his train travels and bus rides that he found characters who people his cult films, Jab We Met (2007), Rockstar (2011), Tamasha (2015) and Highway (2014). Such was his eye for minutiae that he even spotted the ads of the so-called “sex doctors” in local trains connecting India’s hinterland and put together a story on what their clinics could look like in Dr Arora (2022), a drama series for an OTT platform. Now, he is exploring the expansive space of new media and helping build a photographers’ community that can document a real India with some help from National Geographic. The initiative is called #NoFilter by Indigo. “The visual narrative of stills by a curious mind behind the lens continues to be the best way to uphold the truth and focus on the significance of a moment in time. That agency is akin to Gandhigiri of our times,” says the 52-year-old filmmaker. Excerpts from an interview: Can unfiltered photography change contemporary storytelling on social media? It’s most important to do this now when every narrative is being manipulated, viewpoints are crowding out each other and AI (artificial intelligence) is creating a parallel universe. We need to press the pause button, de-plug ourselves from devices, sit under a tree and just talk to people passing by. As a content creator, this is a relieving experience because you are allowed to do something the way you see it, which is not post-produced or coloured. The only extent to which technology should be allowed is to better an image in its raw form. Sadly, the independent-minded photojournalist, who may walk into a conflict or riot zone, is also under threat these days for countering the prevalent narrative. I admit that many photojournalists are risking their lives. But these challenges also help them refine their craft and find smart ways to say what they want to say. And most social media is in the visual format which allows for individual storytelling. That is a great opportunity to reach out to the masses, a tool for Gandhigiri. If the photographer doesn’t know what he wants to say or hear his voice over existing perceptions, then he would have lost his art of storytelling forever. I think your camera is a weapon that you must own and use responsibly. Your image has to come from that place of responsibility. Sometime photo journalists know how a certain image can provoke a certain reaction. It is their job to use that image in the most constructive way possible. I have myself grown up on news photographs which left a deep impression on my mind about how to build a visual narrative. They inform my body of work. Since we mentioned Gandhigiri, do you feel what Gandhi stood for is lost somewhere? I admire Mahatma Gandhi and don’t have as much regard for any other political figure. If he could come back through Rajkumar Hirani’s successful Munnabhai franchise, then you must know that he will tower over every new structure that is built in this country. Very few world leaders have been as revolutionary, worked for the enhancement of humanity or gone beyond political agenda. He will be alive in every person, in small and big ways. I had mentioned in another interview about my favourite line from Tamasha, “Apni kahaani mujhse pooch raha hai? Kaayar. Kis se darta hai? Hain kaun yahaan? Tu bataa kya hota hai aage? Bataa. Bol apni kahaani. (Why are you asking me about your own story. Who do you fear? There’s nobody here. You decide and tell your own story.)” Does censorship or cancel culture impact your filmmaking? No creative person likes to be reined in but there will always be censorship regardless of establishment. Iranian filmmakers work under so much censorship, yet they tell the most universal story of human relationships. They can’t show a woman without a headscarf, yet they make the most romantic films possible. The true creative artist will try harder and find a way. What about unfiltered moments with your own camera? So many times in my films, the coincidental has become a part of the organic whole. That’s because we were alive and agile in that impromptu moment. For example, in Jab We Met, where Geet is perched on the haystack and talking to Ansghuman, a train raced past behind. The camera kept rolling, we added sound effects and it became a metaphor for their relationship. In Tamasha, the gullies of Hauz Khas, with their graffiti, became the aesthetic and shaped the characters in the film. A good frame is what you can take in that quadrangle in a single moment in time. As a balladeer of Delhi, will you return to its urbanscape? Delhi is so dramatic, it cannot be captured in its entirety ever. So many layers of history, built over thousands of years, beautifully co-exist in a frame without eliminating each other. A 100-year-old monument sits with a glass façade. In 40 years, both would be old but would have aged differently. And that panorama you won’t get anywhere. It is a city with the strongest cross-cultural currents; communities affect the city and the city makes them their own. So the Bengalis, Tamilians and Malayalis get “Delhiised” and become a whole different sub-group with its own prolific culture and food. You would not find that anywhere else.
