Please Introduce Yourself
I am Maharshi Tuhin Kashyap, a final year student at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata in the Department of Direction and Screenplay Writing. I was born and brought up in Guwahati. I completed my schooling from Shrimanta Shankar Academy, Dispur. I completed my degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Girjananda Institute of Management and Technology, Tezpur.
How did the idea of The Horse from Heaven (Mur Ghurar Duronto Goti) come up?
The film is a college project. I was writing something related to the Majuli Satra. I was trying to write the draft for a film and I was not quite satisfied with it. During this process of writing, my grandmother passed away. I went along with my dad to Barpeta in order to cremate my grandmother. When her cremation was going on, I was sitting with my father beside a pond. We were sad and he was telling me about his past, how he built the house and planted the trees there etc. It was an emotional moment.
Then suddenly a man appeared to be sitting beside us. He starts talking about his horse. He tells us about how beautiful his horse is, how fast it is and how he bought the horse, which was an interesting story. He said he didn't have money to buy the horse. Somebody told him that someone in the village is selling a horse. He went on to check the horse with no intention of buying the horse but ended up being mesmerized with the beauty of the horse. The owner demanded Rs 4000 in exchange for the horse while the man just had Rs 1000. He paid Rs 1000, booked the horse, came back home and requested his wife to give him the rest of the money. Eventually his wife gave him the rest of the money and he bought the horse. His story was very boring for us as we were in a different emotional state.
However, on our way back, I couldn't get the man out of my mind. He was always there. Somebody obsessing over his horse in a cremation ground was a very absurd scene. I asked my father what he thinks about the man on our return journey. My father said that the man was probably bluffing. He pointed out that no one will sell their horse for 4000 rupees. Then I started thinking that what if the horse the man is taking about is not a horse but a donkey, but the man thinks it is a horse. That's how the idea of our film came up and the plot revolves around this idea. It is about a man who thinks his horse is the fastest horse in the world and he is taking his horse to the city in order to win all the horse races. But what he has is a donkey and not a horse. We shot the film in 2019 and then the pandemic came in. We colour corrected the film after the pandemic and the film was ready by the beginning of this year.
Who were the primary crew members of Mur Ghurar Duronto Goti?
The primary crew members of the film includes, Pulkit Phillip - Editor, Nilanjana Rudra - Producer, Cinematographer - Arnab Laha, Sound Designers - Arnab Bora, Somnath Gogoi and Colourist - Mahak Gupta. Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute produced the film. The film is a second year final project. Some people who travelled from Assam to help in my film and assisted me were Bishal Sarmah, Tanmoy Saud, Sonatan Karmakar whose names I must take. Also Mruthyunjay Mehetre and Rahul Dhangar had come from Pune to help in our set. The other crew members were primarily my SRFTI mates.
What is the process of getting selected to the Academy Awards or Oscars?
After we completed the film, we started sending it to a lot of film festivals. Art is subjective and so are film festivals. Likewise the journey of film festivals is complicated and difficult to predict. Someone might like your film and some not. While some may like your film at some point of time and not like it at another point of time. We were receiving a lot of rejections. However, Kolkata International Film Festival screened our film and liked it. Jaipur International Film Festival had also screened our film. It was also screened at Cineteca National Museum in Mexico. It was a special curation and not a film festival. At the beginning of our film's journey, we also sent our film to Oberhausen Film Festival, which is the oldest short film festival in the world. They liked our film and shortlisted it. However, they said in November that they will inform us only by March. They said that they really liked our film and are looking forward to include it in the final. A film getting selected for Oberhausen is a big deal. Meanwhile there was another film festival that selected our film and nominated it for the finals. We had a high chance of winning that film festival since there were only four film festivals. We were really looking forward to it. However, we had to wait for Oberhausen as they would screen a film only when it is the film's first International screening. Eventually Oberhausen said no and we already said no to the other film festival as well, ultimately losing both the chances. So it was a difficult situation to be in with so many rejections. After that we got selected in Bengaluru International Short Film Festival, which is an Oscar qualified film festival. Oscar qualified festivals are very interesting festivals as Oscar selects them. They have to be really good in their quality. Eventually we got selected and there were very big names in the list of the festival, like Varun Grover's 'Kiss'. It was a great pleasure to be there in the same list with many big names to who I look up to. Eventually we won the festival which was a big surprise. That meant that our film was qualified to send to the Oscar. That's how we qualified for the Oscars and we have already sent our film.
How did you feel after your film was selected for the Oscars?
It is a very overwhelming feeling which is difficult to be expressed in words. I feel very amazed that this has happened to me at this age, as I am still a student and my film is selected for the Oscars. I know it and totally understand that certain things happen coincidentally in our lives, but this is a very big boost for me.
Tell us about your association with 'Bulu Film' which has attained much acclaimed success in Assam.
I am the Associate Director in 'Bulu Film'. Along with it, I am also a co-screenplay writer in the film which Himangsu Prasad Das directed. It was a lifetime experience to work with people who are so prolific and experienced and so grounded. Himangsu Prasad Das and Chanku Niranjan Nath are NSD (National School of Drama) graduates. The most important thing for me is that I feel like I have grown as a human being after working in Bulu Film. This is because the film deals with such deep and intimate issues, which we all have experienced as men living in the society. So going through that experience, going through all the mistakes and bad things that you, your friends or people you know have done, going through the entire history of our gender and understanding how problematic it is, was a beautiful experience.
What was the experience of working with Atul Pasoni like?
Atul Pasoni sir is a very experienced person who has worked in about 66 films. It was a great experience for me as a director. He was working with us on all the different drafts that I had written of the film. On the set, he was always ready to give what I wanted. He already knew what I wanted by the time we were on the set. So there were rarely any retakes. So it was a big privilege working with a person of that stature.
How is life like at SRFTI?
I joined SRFTI right after my graduation in 2017. I always wanted to be a part of FTII or SRFTI. The world was very different in SRFTI from what I imagined before joining it. It was beautiful in very different ways. Before joining SRFTI, I used to imagine that I will go there and learn how to make a film, learn everything that is possible and become a great director. But when I went there I understood that this whole process of making films or understanding cinema was actually a process to understand our own self. It was not about the technicalities. Yes everything regarding the technicalities is there, which you have to learn. But the most important part was to understand our own self, to see a mirror where we could see the good, the bad, the ugliest and the best part of our own self. And then trying to express it through a form, which in our case was cinema. My politics, my ideas and philosophies, everything changed in SRFTI. Another interesting thing that happened to me was that I really feel like I got very close to Assam after I went to Kolkata or out of Assam. Till I was in Assam, I always felt like I would go and make Hindi Films and become a big director in Bollywood. But when I went to SRFTI, I realized that what I wanted in life was to look at my own roots, back in Assam. I wanted to find my own stories and make films in any language, language is not a boundary. I wanted to explore the particularities of my own self which was back in Assam. I got introduced to these elements after joining SRFTI.
Why did you choose direction and not any other aspect of filmmaking?
I was into theatre. I was into children's theatre for a long time. I was doing children's theatre since Class 4 with Manik Roy sir, who is an eminent children's theatre practitioner and director in Assam. I am lucky to be a part of his journey. I asked myself in Class 8 one day about what I want to do in life. I was into sports at that time and I had just left sports as I was more interested in theatre. It was also the time when matriculation was nearing and choices were getting cut down to more specifics. Coincidentally on that day, Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscars and it was announced in the morning assembly. It was at that time when I thought that maybe this is what I want to do in life. Maybe I want to make a film and eventually win the Oscar for a film which is made in India by an Indian. I was a child back then and I think that sparked something in me. Eventually I started asking people about how to make films and it was interesting. Later, I and some of my friends formed a group called Deuka Films and started exploring and making films with whatever resources we had. So I was already clear that if given the option to direct a film along with other aspects of the filmmaking, direction is what I would prefer.
Who are your inspirations in the film world?
I draw my inspiration from many people. Some of my inspirations when it comes to filmmaking are Jia Zhangke from China, Tsai Ming Liang from Taiwan, Apichatpong Weerasethakul from Thailand, Robert Bresson and Jean Luc Godard from France, Aki Kaurishmaki from Finland and Mrinal Sen.
What are the challenges that exist in the present Assamese filmmaking scenario according to you?
I think presently the challenges are becoming more interesting than before. This is because of the way Assamese film scene is blooming with new films and new themes. The perspective of looking at films is changing. Everyone has their own original stories. The problems which we face are generally monetary. This economic problem gives birth to other problems. Because of the economy people have a very problematic and vague idea about cinema. People think that they need to support a cinema just because it is an Assamese film. Why would they spend their money to watch a film because it is an Assamese film? The film needs to have something unique in it. The idea that if you criticize an Assamese film you don't support Assamese cinema is completely wrong and very problematic. If a film which is not remarkable is released and a critic doesn't criticize it, the next day when the Assamese audience goes on to watch the film, they will understand that this is what Assamese cinema can give us. All the hopes that had come up for the industry, for the Assamese cinema will go down again and they won't come around the next time. This is why I think criticism is very important for the Assamese industry right now. The best thing that a film can do is, it can start a conversation. Even for Bulu Film we received a lot of criticism which was beautiful. People criticized the film around its politics and how they would have wanted it to be portrayed.
Your thoughts on cinema in Assam
In Assam, cinephiles are on the rise and upcoming filmmakers are coming up with more original ideas. The west has exhausted their basket of ideas. But in Assam, the north east or India, we have more untold specific histories of our existence which are yet to be explored. It leaves a lot of opportunity behind for us to explore them as filmmakers.
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