It has taken ace cinematographer Santhosh Sivan 11 years to make the journey from Thiruvanathapuram to Hollywood, via Chennai and Mumbai. Today, he is known in film circles in the US as the director of Terrorist, which won rare reviews at the prestigious Sundance Festival at Park City, Arizona, early this year.Not only has he been featured in all important newspapers in the US and the American Cinematographer magazine, considered by many as the Bible of cinema, but also, he is the first Indian cinematographer who has been featured in it. Sivan has received more than a dozen offers from Hollywood to direct films.Terrorist has already been shown in 50 American cities and will be released in Europe shortly. "I am now eagerly waiting for the response from Europe," says Santhosh Sivan.Sivan strongly believes that it is experiments like the ones he carried out in Terrorist and children's films like Malli and Halo and his just completed Hindi commercial film, Fiza, directed by Khalid Mohammed, that have made him what he is today. The actors in Terrorist were mostly his unit boys and some college students who came to do a project with him. Fiza, which stars Hritik Roshan, Karisma Kapoor and Jaya Bachchan, has mostly newcomers as its technical and back-up stafft.To this Sivan says, "It is in fact easy to vibe with new talent because they have fresh ide as and new approaches. The biggest advantage which they have is that they don't do it as a formula."On whether he would like to be known as a director or cinematographer, he replies, "Both are dear to me." These days, he wields the camera for not more than two films at a time. The rest of the time, he is absorbed in research for his next project. Now, after almost five years of research, he is getting ready for his next mega directorial project, Emperor Ashoka, which he feels, will take him to even greater heights of filmmaking. This movie, he discloses, will be told like a folk tale, with the Kalinga war in the background. Shah Rukh Khan, who is producing the film, will play the lead role, opposite the newest Kapoor, Kareena.Sivan believes a filmmaker has to keep abreast with advances in technology. "One has to be updated and this definitely helps you improve," he says. However, Sivan has a particular attachment for an old camera belonging to his father, which is now nearly two decades old. He has used it in all his films. "There are certain things which the sophisticated ones can't do, but this one can," he explains.- IANS
