Aparna Sens latest Iti Mrinalini,is scheduled for international release on July 29. She has written,directed and acted in the unusual film. You generally avoid casting yourself in your directorial films. How difficult is it for director Aparna Sen to direct,control and work with the actress Aparna Sen? It is very,very difficult! Firstly,film direction is extremely strenuous work! One gets completely exhausted by the time one has completed the shoot. To take on an acting assignment in addition is really tough. I am a very hands-on director. I mostly do the production design of my films myself and am extremely involved in every department of filmmaking. It is very difficult to concentrate on my role as an actor when I have so many other things to worry about! Besides,I cant see myself while acting except on the monitor after the shot. So as an actor in my own film,I dont get the benefit of my own directorial supervision. But there must be some advantage. The only upside of acting in my own films is that having written the script (and usually the story too),I know all the characters inside out. Sometimes it is easier to play a role myself rather than try to extract a difficult performance out of some other indifferent actor. You are a workshop-oriented director. Can you explain why? A workshop is not a rehearsal where one goes over the lines of actual dialogue! In a workshop,the actors are given imaginary situations where they have to interact with each other as characters in the film. They make up their own dialogues as they go along. In this way,a common history is created between them so that they do not meet each other as characters for the first time on the sets. For instance,Priyanshu Chatterjee plays a film director in Iti Mrinalini. One of the exercises we gave him during the workshop was to do an imaginary interview with a journalist where he would talk about the pre-production work of his impending film. No such interview scene was there in the screenplay. It was just an exercise that helped him to get under the skin of the character. What role does music play in this film since the younger Mrinalini (Konkona Sen Sharma) reflects the 1970s and 1980s in Bengali cinema and flashes forward to contemporary times? Music plays a very important role. This is the first film where I have used songs other than Rabindrasangeet or folk! As it is a film about a mainstream star of the 1970s,we needed songs that would evoke the popular music of the period. Debajyoti Misra was the natural choice. He is extremely talented and has the advantage of having worked very closely with the legendary Salil Chowdhury for years. When I briefed him about the kind of songs we had in mind,he knew at once what I was talking about! Apart from the songs used for playback,we wanted a title-song,which becomes the theme of the film. You have used some verses of Sunil Gangopadhyay. We used some verses from a poem in Sunil Gangopadhyays collection Smritir Shahar (City Of Memories). I felt it would fit in as it was written in the 70s when Sunilda was a young man! I wanted it to be something in the nature of a ballad. Debajyoti came with his guitar to create the song right in front of me. During the recording,he added harmonisation with great effect. The background music had to be different,needed more to express moods than to express situations and events. We did not confine the background music within any period though. Would you say that there are autobiographical elements as you were a top star in Bengali mainstream cinema for many years? Every film is autobiographical in some way or another. This applies to all filmmakers who are directing films based on their own screenplays. They invariably pour out something of themselves into the story which spills over into the film. Iti Mrinalini is set against the backdrop of Bengali cinema as it existed in the 1970s. It is a world I have been a part of and to which I still am very close. Naturally,people I have known and interacted with on a professional and personal level,people I have been close to,surfaced in my screenplay and placed themselves in the cameras eye. My experiences were reflected in my screenplay. For the first time,you have cast actors you have not worked with before - Koushik Sen,Priyanshu Chatterjee and Shaheb Bhattacharya. Why? There are four men in Mrinalinis life,each representing a different facet of love in which I deeply believe. I needed a young actor to play Mrinalinis first love Abhijit,and Shaheb seemed to fit the bill in terms of appearance. He is a lovely person - dedicated and cooperative and easy to work with! Rajat Kapoor plays the director Siddhartha Sarkar,a man much older than Mrinalini. He needed to look confident and self-assured and also had to be quite attractive. When I was looking for an actor to play the sensitive and gentle Chintan Nair,the author who becomes Mrinalinis closest friend,I thought,why not try Kaushik Sen? He is an extremely sensitive actor whose true potential has not been explored yet. I wanted to change his look completely. Kaushik has beautiful eyes always hidden behind a pair of heavy glasses. I did away with those and his moustache. I gave him a slight South Indian accent. I am delighted with the result. I feel the Chintan I had imagined has come to life! Priyanshu plays Imtiaz Chowdhury,a young film director from NYU who makes off-mainstream films to which Mrinalini is a stranger. He is younger than she is but gets romantically involved. I needed an extremely attractive and sophisticated man different from the others in her life. Given a choice,who would take priority in your life - Aparna Sen,the actress or Aparna Sen the director? The director - without question! Firstly,I feel I am a better director than an actor. Secondly direction is much more satisfying. As an actor,you are part of someone elses vision; but when you are directing,the vision is your own.
