BENGALURU: OP Srivastava’s Life in Metaphors that bagged this year’s National Award for the non-feature film category will be feted by the Chalanachitra Academy this morning.
The film was screened at the Bengaluru International Film Festival in January, and on Tuesday, at Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy.
For about a week now, Srivastava and Girish Kasaravalli – the maker and the subject of the documentary – have been touring the state for screenings.
“We just got to Bengaluru from Shivamogga,” says Srivastava who’s keen on screening his debut film in the ‘interior parts of Karnataka’.
In his ‘second innings’, the former investment banker was looking to pick up filmmaking, attending workshops in different cities, when he saw Kasaravalli’s Dweepa in Goa in 2012.
“I heard the man speak after that, at a master class he was conducting there, and I thought, ‘This is the kind of film I would like to make,’” Srivastava says. He says he was completely bowled over by how Kasaravalli’s films, though mostly features, are layered with socio-political issues.
“I also think he is ahead of his times,” he says. “Decades after the films were made, we still talk about issues like displacement.” Thaayi Saheba and Gulabi Talkies are two of his other Kasaravalli favourites.
For about a year after his first encounter with the doyen of parallel cinema who became his idol, Srivastava wanted to work alongside him. “He said he wanted to work as an associate,” recalls Kasaravalli. “But I explained to him that I had my own team.”
However, he did observe Kasaravalli at work, as he shot his two most recent films, both documentaries – Ananthamurthy: Not A Biography But A Hypothesis, and Images/Reflections, on fellow filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan.
“Over the two years that I was making these, he was shooting his documentary on me,” says Kasaravalli.
Srivastav says he spoke to about 30 people – classmates of the Padma Shri and others who have worked closely with or interacted with him – in ‘the process of exploration’.
“I did not approach them with a set expectation,” he says. “And what each of them said, U R Ananthamurthy in particular, was a revelation.”
Kasaravalli says he was pleasantly surprised how Life in Metaphors turned out, considering it’s the filmmaker’s first.
A National Award winner four times over, he adds that such an honour for a debut, especially when it’s a documentary, can help you reach it to a wider audience.
“Many of us know this from experience,” he says. His first feature, the 1977-release Ghatashraddha, was honoured with the National Award too.
Srivastava says producers and distributors have shown greater interest since the announcement of the awards last week.
Inspired by Kasaravalli, whose oeuvre boasts about 13 feature films, is Srivastava planning on a feature? “Yes, I have a script ready. It deals with contemporary issues too,” is all he’s willing to give away.
*Life in Metaphors -- A Portrait of Girish Kasaravalli, will be screened on Wednesday, at 11 am at Chamundeshwari Studio, and at 6 pm at KV Subbanna Aptha Rangamadira.