Starring: Sanjay Suri, Juhi Chawla, Victor Banerjee, Lillete Dubey, Purab Kohli, Dipannita Sharma, Gautam Kapoor, Shweta Kwaatra, Peeya Rai Chowdhury and Shayan Munshi Story and Screenplay: Onir Dialogue: Amitabh Varma Art: Shamita Sarkar, Ambika Suri & Tina Nagpaul Styling: Anita Dongre Sound Design: Arun Nambiar Editor: Onir Cinematography: Arvind Kannabiran Lyrics: Amitabh Varma Music: Viveck Philip Produced by: Sanjay Suri, Onir, Vicky Tejwani and Raj Kaushal Directed by: Onir Format : 35mm/Color/Dolby Digital Language : Hindi Duration : 140 minutes

Premise

Let me start with a true story. 1989 Goa: This story began at 8 am on the morning of 14 February 1989, when a young man was picked up from his house and asked to report to the local police station later that day. No reason was given for the request. Upon arriving at the police station, he was taken immediately to the local hospital by two policemen and told that he must undergo a physical examination. By this time, he was quite scared, as he did not know why he was being detained. His fear did not abate when he saw that six policemen were standing at the door of the casualty ward, two of them armed with rifles and the others with bamboo sticks. The examining doctor entered the man's name in a register. The man was able to see that on the cover of the book was written the word 'AIDS'. Without informing his family he was arrested and sent to a sanatorium to be kept in solitary confinement.

This film deals with the trauma of the man whose name was entered in that register - Let me give him a name- NIKHIL KAPOOR, the once state swimming champion of Goa. Those were the early days of AIDS in India and awareness about the disease was minimal, while fear and misconception were at maximum. His parents, friends and colleagues turn their backs on him. Suddenly, his whole world collapses.

The structure of this film is the story of a man recounted by his sister and other people he knew on his death anniversary (1993).

Every thing for this film happened so fast that sometimes I feel robbed of experiencing the experience. It all started in April when couple of projects that I have been working on for about two years didn't take off at the last minute. I was already sitting on five bound scripts and feeling terribly frustrated because nothing seemed to be moving. This is when my friend Sanjay Suri came up with the suggestion that maybe I should write a script that we could produce ourselves. Maybe a DV film! That was the beginning of My Brother Nikhil.

This story was something developed from a real incident I heard about eight years ago and within ten days the first draft was ready. Sanjay was convinced about the film and we started to look for cast and finance for the film. Both of us strongly felt that we wanted this film to be released in the theatres. But we needed much more finance to realize this project on celluloid. Every possible producer/ financer we went to liked the script but wanted changes, which did not suit us. Parallel to this every actor we went to agreed to do the script. So there we were, with the cast that we wanted, the script we wanted and still no finance. Sanjay then decided to put in some finance himself and look for private funding from friends and well wishers. When Raj Kaushal and Vicky Tejwani heard from Sanjay about the project they too showed interest in joining us for making the film happen, and hence the name Four Front films. What started off as a DV film soon took a much bigger scale there we were shooting the film in Goa from the 5th of August, 2004 with a crew of 95 persons.

The first schedule was of 25 days and then we took a month's break so that Sanjay could loose some weight for the last quarter of the film when he has full-blown AIDS. The second schedule was for 10 days from the 20th of September, 2004. And now as I write this, the sound design of the film is under progress and we plan to release the film in January, 2005.

What helped me greatly was the fact that the entire cast and crew were doing this film because they believed in the script and somewhere they felt that it was not just a film they were doing for financial or professional reasons but also emotionally they were attached to the project. We had a very tight Budget and we knew we had to finish in time… the best way to define our situation is how Arvind would put it….

"We are working round the clock not because we are trying to save money but because we don't have the money".

There was this positive energy that kept us all moving. Of course there was a lot of pre-planning that Arvind and I went through in terms of shots and the look of the film, so that there was no confusion or argument in the set about how we shoot something. Moreover I think for Arvind he was not really just shooting 'my' film… he was shooting his own film!

Now when I sit alone in the editing room editing my film I feel lonely and nervous. Suddenly the responsibility seemed so much larger. It is not only living up to people's expectation it is living up to one's own expectations. I have given my 100%, but was that enough? Well, I will get to know soon I suppose. Sometimes I lament that being a Director, Writer, Editor and one of the producers is too much for a first film. I can't even throw tantrums. But I realize that maybe it is for the best because not only did Sanjay insure that creatively, I have been the deciding factor but also taking upon himself of handling the full production in Goa so that I could concentrate in the making. I don't think that given a chance to make this film differently with a bigger budget I would make it radically different. Maybe a couple of more unit parties, a little bit more of extras in crowd sequences and yes…pay everyone more!

While the first schedule despite the rains went off smoothly. Our luck ran out the second time. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. It rained without fail every time we planned to shoot outdoors. The camera had to be changed after the first three days. Everyone was much more edgy. Continuity costumes and props went missing. Location problems…. Name it!!! And to top it I had an ulcer on my throat, which made it really difficult to talk for three days.

It is through the making of this film that suddenly one has learned to really respect every minute of shooting time, every can of stock exposed and every individual that put in their effort to make this film happen.

Honestly speaking I find it difficult to write about the making. It all seems a haze. I am so much in the middle of it all that it is so difficult to pull back and write about it. I remember the tension when we were running short of funds for the second schedule. When Anita who was styling the film came to the editing room and saw the line up. She looked into my face, saw that I was worried and called me after ten minutes on her way back home.

"I think I like what I saw and would like to contribute to help complete this film".

It was people like this who made this dream come true. It is my assistants who refused to take their conveyance and mobile expenses from the production saying that it was their contribution that has made it possible. Micz, whom I have not even met, saw the making of the film in Berlin (Philip and Merle from Pong were shooting the making of the film) and send us some funds to help. I remember what Victor told me on the last day I was shooting for the film.

"It is an honour for me to be in this film because it is your first film and the most special film".

Yes will the most special film because special people made it happen….

And the memories are those of Arvind buying me a drink when we finally 'wrapped' with ..you have done it young man…., of being called 'a slave driver' by Subha my first AD, of Ambika sitting in front of the TV monitor and weeping because Sanjay was doing something emotional in the shot, of Victor teasing Lillette every time I set a trolley shot for Lillette, of ever smiling Purab who insisted that he is the lucky mascot and dub the first line(he spent two hours driving back and forth to dub for five minutes), of my friend Sujoy Ghosh (director Jhankaar Beats) just coming over to Goa to be there for us and ending up acting in the film, of Juhi calling Sanjay 'Panditji' every time we went to him when stuck with our Hindi dialogues and needed to change something, of waiting for the rain to stop….of the blank and exhausted look that both me and Sanjay had on wrap because we were already thinking about taking the earliest flight back to Mumbai and start the post and marketing the film… and till we see it in the theatre I don't think we can truly experience what the making of this film has been…..

Onir is a graduate from Jadavpur University in comparative Literature. He trained in film making and editing with SFB TTC Berlin and has been working for the last ten years in Mumbai as an Editor, Music Album Producer-Director and Documentary Filmmaker. My Brother Nikhil is his first film. To know more about the film go to www.mybrothernikhil.com.