18th Pune International Film Festival: Filmmakers under pressure to be different, original in today’s world, says R Balki

The filmmaker was speaking during the Vijay Tendulkar memorial lecture at PVR Icon

Today, we are exposed to a lot of content. We see interesting, weird things happening in people’s everyday lives. There is a lot of pressure on filmmakers to be different and original in such a world,’’ said director R Balki. He was speaking on Saturday during the Vijay Tendulkar memorial lecture at PVR Icon as a part of 18th Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) organised by Pune Film Foundation and Maharashtra government. Dr Jabbar Patel, director, Piff, interviewed Balki.

Film director R Balki at the PIFF in the city on Saturday. (HT PHOTO)

Balki recalled meeting playwright Vijay Tendulkar in his last days. ‘‘Tendulkar was the bravest writer of our times and he is more relevant today. He was brave, not only because he was not afraid to speak his mind, but whenever there was disturbance in the society, he didn’t let that disturb him. He used it to be more creative,’’ said Balki.

Balki talked about his advertising career and some of his very well received films like ‘Cheeni Kum’, ‘Paa’ and ‘Padman’. He also mentioned that the true purpose of cinema is to give back to the society.

Talking about the audience, Balki said, ‘‘People talk about which cinema will appeal to B centre, C centre or A centre. I think that there is no such thing. There is only one centre and its your head. When you start formulating things, you are creating something for the people you don’t even know. The content you make should appeal to the normal sensibility.’’

Speaking about the movie ‘Paa’, Balki said,‘‘I formulated the idea for the film when I once saw Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan speaking to each other and realised that they were talking in a way very opposite to their personalities. I thought what would happen if Abhishek plays the role of the father and Amitabh of the son. We shot this movie without the VFX effects and most of the film was shot from the top angle to make Amitabh Bachchan look like a child.’’