Starring: Mammootty, Vikram Gokhle, Lillette Dubey, Neha Dubey, Joy Sengupta, Kiran Janjani, Tisca Chopra, Meghna Kothari Screenplay: Bappaditya Roy Dialogues: Pankaj Kapoor Costumes: Dipika Lal Make Up: Sandeep Desai Art Director: Parimal Ranjit Editor: Aseem Sinha Audiographer: Indrajit Neogi Cinematographer: Amitabha Singh Music: Fazal Qureshi Produced by: Think 16 Directed by: Bappaditya Roy Format: Shot on Super 16, blown up to 35mm Running Time: 110 minutes

Synopis

An unknown pregnant girl has ended her life by hanging herself from ceiling fan in a room of a little known hutment. In middle of the night, an uninvited Inspector lands in the house of an eminent Industrialist to investigate the case. Baffled by suggestion of being linked with the incident and shocked by the thought of being responsible for death of a person surviving at the outermost fringe of their vision of society, Vikrant Pradhan and his family give in to the interrogation reluctantly. As the evening turns into night and as the night grows deeper and deeper, the questions posed by Inspector Vivek prod to uncover some of the darkest secrets held within the minds of every member of Pradhan family. As if under a hypnotic spell of Inspector Vivek, every individual makes a journey through dark and remote corridors of their mind. Towards the end of this journey, it becomes quite evident, that each of the characters is directly or indirectly, morally or actually, responsible for the suicide.

As a concept, I found films like Ittefaq (1969) and Ek Ruka Hua Faisla very similar. Both had - a one day or one night event, a single line thought, had just a handful of actors and most if all the action took place basically under one roof. Also I must mention films like Wait Until Dark (1967) and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), which inspired me a lot. I was moved by such genre of films and always wanted to give it a try.

From the onset, I was worried about two things which I had to avoid at all costs - a confusing structure and a boring narrative flow. So it was a big challenge for me when I started writing the screenplay. The first and foremost thought was the story has to hold for two hours in a single location. Thus with writes and rewrites, it took us almost 17 months to reach the final draft. Multiple questions would be thrown up along the way. How to connect multiple events and form a single story? What would be the graph of each character? Why they should be together under a single roof? Would the audience get the message of the filmor not. Well, sufficient to say, it was a long exercise.

While writing the screenplay I realized this could not be a big budget film. Because it is not a formula film, therefore it catered to a niche audience. But frankly speaking, more than me hankering after prospective producers, it was they who showed interest in the proposal. But when it came to the final stages, none of them were really committed. When my third producer backed out I was completely blank. But thenI realized that if without having a single penny people think they can be producers then why can't I ? At least I have some if not no money. So I actually gave it a thought. Then Amitabha, my cinematographer and his super 16 camera with which we shot the film came into the picture. One evening at around 8.30 we had a long telephonic conversation and next morning at 7 am we became producers. We pulled in our little savings and started our journey. And somehow everything fell in place. We worked out a budget of 1.30 crores which included the remuneration for cast and crew, production, publicity and 15 release prints.

Coming to the casting, I realized if I had to execute the film within a deadline and within its limited budget then I must cast actors who are dedicated and hungry to act in good roles. I always imagined Inspector Vivek as an unknown face - a face, which is not easily identifiable. At the same time I wanted a very good actor who would enjoy playing such a part. Over the years, I had developed a relation with Mammootty that went well beyond professional parameters. During the making of my first feature film (releasing in Sept 2004) Ek Din Anjane Mein, I narrated the idea to Mammootty. And he told me whenever I wanted to go ahead with this film, he would love to play the lead. And more or less the same goes for Vikram Gokhle, Lillete Dubey, Joy Sengupta, Neha Dubey and Kiran Janjani. They are all fantastic actors and excellent human beings.

Super 16 was both a technical as well as economical choice. I wanted to treat the flashbacks differently, in terms of hue and texture. Also considering the nature of the lighting as the film grows more somber, the look gradually becomes darker. So we felt during the process of blowing it up digitally from 16mm to 35mm, we will achieve the look. Secondly, we did not have to spend money to hire a camera because Amitabha had one. (Talk about practicality!)

I would say the film was made 40% on the location and 60% during the post. The biggest task was to create a pace inside a single room and to bring silence as when it mattered to an otherwise verbose narration. In fact the edit and the sound design play an extremely important role in this film.

On making the film, I would comment that it was a long journey in with in a short period of time. As of now I don't know whether one ahs created good or a bad cinema. But definitely it was a great learning and working experience.

Now that the film is almost ready, we are striving for both the National and International markets so it reaches out to maximum people possible and yes, also to recover our money! So that we can continue our journey of being able to make the films we truly want to…

Bappaditya Roy is an alumnus of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad with specialization in Visual Communication. He has since produced and directed several advertisement films, corporate films and documentaries besides a feature film EK Din Anjane Mein due for release in September 2004. Sau Jhooth Ek Sach is his second feature film.