Author Archives: Souvik Gupta

an addict to movies..

In Conversation with Actor Nakul Vaid: On Xhoixobote Dhemalite (Rainbow Fields) and More…

Actor Nakul Vaid is someone whom we have all gone on to be familiar over the years thanks to an impressive body of work which includes films like Baghban, Ab Tak Chappan, Chak De India and The Lunchbox. He has also worked in regional films like Shankachil (Bengali) andEkhon Nedekha Nodir Xhipare/as the River flows (Assamese). With Xhoixobote Dhemalite (Rainbow Fields) we see Nakul Vaid once again teaming up with writer-director Bidyut Kotoky. The film which is now finally ready for release. Here’s Nakul Vaid in a free wheeling chat with MAM on Rainbow Fields and more.Continue reading “In Conversation with Actor Nakul Vaid: On Xhoixobote Dhemalite (Rainbow Fields) and More…”

GAME OF THRONES- Season 6: An Essay

CONTAINS SPOILERS

It is not often that a good episode on TV fills you with such unadulterated joy that you want to revisit the same to truly believe the magic of what you have just seen or savour each moment of what you watched with sheer anticipation in the first go. It is almost unequivocally believed that barring Jon Snow’s resuscitation and Hodor’s tragic death, Season 6 of Game of Thrones has been insipid by the standards it set for itself in the last five years.Continue reading “GAME OF THRONES- Season 6: An Essay”

The Cast of RANJISH: A Web-Series

A light-hearted romantic or humorous story works on the relatability of characters and the treatment of their equations. However, a serious flick that is set in minimal locations hinges on the dialogues and the performance of the actors. Imagine Richard Linklater’s “Before Trilogy” with a less sincere effort from Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, or Shawshank Redemption without Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman’s silent chemistry, and you would know the difference. My actors may not be Delpy and Freeman, and I am definitely no Linklater, but it was as important for us as it was for those stalwarts. While I worked on the screenplay and the dialogues, and guided them through the shoot as much as I could, it was eventually upon the actors to make it believable and help the story reach out to a larger number of people. And I can proudly say that they have hit all the right buttons through their performances. In this post, I bring you the characters and the actors who portrayed the roles.Continue reading “The Cast of RANJISH: A Web-Series”

The Crew of RANJISH: A Web-Series

As the very common saying goes ‘TV is writer’s medium, Theatre is actor’s medium and Film is a director’s medium’. A small web-series like ‘RANJISH’ is more similar to film than television. However, as someone who wrote and directed it, I had to shoulder the maximum responsibility of the series. Having said that, nothing like this is possible without collaborative effort from many people. And RANJISH would not have been possible if the producers, the cast and the crew had not put in their weight and support behind it to the best of their abilities.Continue reading “The Crew of RANJISH: A Web-Series”

All About “Ranjish”: A Web-Series

After making a handful of short films, it was an obvious urge to make something bigger. It is undoubtedly tough for a mere short filmmaker to venture into making feature films, and my dream of making something beyond shorts seemed to delay indefinitely. And then came the trend of web-series. For that, a lot web-content developers in India, including me, must be hugely indebted to TVF for making Permanent Roommates. It opened a new avenue for a film-like expression with a rather feasible chance of getting audience.Continue reading “All About “Ranjish”: A Web-Series”

In Conversation with Actor-Producer Sanjay Suri: On Chauranga and More

Sanjay Suri is an Indian actor and producer from Bollywood. He made his acting debut in 1999 with Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi and turned producer with Onir’s “My Brother Nikhil” (2005). Onir and Sanjay are the co-founders of the film production company, Anticlock Films, which has produced Bikash Ranjan Mishra’s much acclaimed film ‘Chauranga’ in international festivals. The film sees the light of day on 08 January, 2016, and here’s an excerpt of a small rendezvous with Sanjay – who is not only the producer but has also played one of the major characters in the film.Continue reading “In Conversation with Actor-Producer Sanjay Suri: On Chauranga and More”

Top 10 Bollywood Films of 2015

Let me start the post with the disclaimer that I haven’t seen some of the acclaimed films of 2015. The most prominent ones among them are Titli, Manjhi, Drishyam,Maragarita with a Straw and Court (though I am told that the last one is mostly in Marathi). On the other hand, I have purposefully kept BAAHUBALI away from this list because the Hindi version is primarily a dubbed one. So, my post may suffer from the problem of exclusion. At the same time, it’s a highly personal choice and in no way reflects the true merit of any film.Continue reading “Top 10 Bollywood Films of 2015”

Rendezvous with Anupama Chopra: Part 2

This one has been long overdue. I had met Anupama Chopra in the first week of June and published the first half of the interview in the first half of July. However, thanks to writing work related to Masaan promotions on MAM and the post production of my web-series, the second half got inordinately delayed. When in mid-September I finally could take out time to transcribe the interview, I decided to hold it off till MAMI, for what better occasion is there to write about the festival director of arguably India’s biggest film festival.Continue reading “Rendezvous with Anupama Chopra: Part 2”

In Conversation with Neeraj Ghaywan: On the Making of ‘Masaan’ and More

Neeraj Ghaywan, an engineer and an MBA, moved on from his corporate career in 2010 to pursue filmmaking. He has assisted renowned filmmaker Anurag Kashyap on the two-part film, Gangs of Wasseypur and was the second unit director for Ugly. He has also made two short films The Epiphany and Shor, the winner of the Grand Jury Awards at three international film festivals in New York, LA and London. However, at this point of time, he is best known for the man who gave us “Masaan” – the film that won FIPRESCI prize (International Jury of Film Critics prize for the Un Certain Regard section) and the Promising Future prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, 2015.

Here’s the excerpt of the conversation I shared with him on Masaan and more…(Spoiler Alert-note the conversation includes some heavy spoilers,so ideally it is advisable to read this if you have already seen the film)Continue reading “In Conversation with Neeraj Ghaywan: On the Making of ‘Masaan’ and More”