BHUBANESWAR: ‘Bum bum bole, bole Kaashi... yeh holi hai Kaashi ki holi’ - the heart-thumping song from Sharman Joshi’s upcoming film ‘Kaashi in search of Ganga’ left the audience glued to their seats during the concluding session of Odisha Literary Festival 2018. The trailer screened on Sunday during the Bollywood session of the festival with the theme ‘Kaashi in search of Ganga, and changing subjects and scripts of Indian cinema’, set the tone for discussion between actor Sharman, film’s writer Manish Kishore and film critic Piyush Roy.
Sharman entered the hall to loud claps from an eager audience and the actor of ‘3 Idiots’ fame returned the affection with his usual big heart-melting smile. One cannot but ignore the drastic transformation of Sharman from Raju Rastogi of 3 Idiots to Kaashi in his new film. Says Sharman, who believes that the film landed in his lap at the right time, “I have matured physically and have got the body and looks that the movie demands.”
Roy, an acclaimed film critic, set the ball rolling with his questions revolving around the film and the actor. Talking about the film, Manish said “Dhiraj, the director and himself tried to show a different Benaras and avoid the cliched. The film, a thriller, has been shot on Manikarnika Ghat for the first time.”
With more cinemas being shot in Tier-II cities, Piyush sought to know the reason behind the changing trend. Sharman said the spurt in making films in small cities has been possible because of the support of governments for such cinema.
Dealing with the topic of changing subjects and scripts, Piyush was of the view that the cinema divisions are shrinking. The divide between parallel and art cinema is breaking as Manish believes that it is a story/script that matters to the audience. “Any movie that does good at the cinema hall is a commercial cinema, irrespective of the genre it belongs to,” he adds.
Delving into the subject, Sharman said this has given the directors a scope to experiment and give life to their scripts which until sometime back could not work out as producers, obviously looked for commercial benefits.
With Lord Shiva being the common factor between Benaras and Bhubaneswar, Manish said plans are on the anvil to shoot in Odisha too, in reply to a question from Piyush on shooting in the State.
Sharman did not fail to oblige his fans and answered all their questions.