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All about positives!
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Director Vishal Bhandari talks about “Kaalchakra” - a telling tale on AIDS
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For a cause Sachin Khedekar plays the lead role in “Kaalchakra”
In my movie the negative is the positive.” A simple assertion by film director Vishal Bhandari, but one which sums up his Marathi movie Kaalchakra. It was screened as part of the Indian Panorama Section, at the ongoing International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa. Based on the life of Shekhar (played by Sachin Khedekar) who discovers he is HIV positive, it has already been selected for screening at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC. Bhandari feels that this is an important “endorsement from a global authority”, which found the movie, “an apt example on how HIV and AIDS movies should be made.”
Having already won recognition and awards for his previous movies, “The Hangman” and “A Pocketful of Dreams”, Bhandari’s “Kaalchakra” is also garnering much attention.
To write the script, Bhandari did intensive theoretical and practical research. While he started with reading books about AIDS, he extended his research to interviewing HIV persons. To ensure that the story is brought out with empathy rather than pity, Bhandari asserts, “I became HIV+ for those six months.” He goes on to explain, “I tried to imagine what it would be like if I got a letter saying that I am HIV+.” To authenticate his research, he even got the script whetted by national AIDS research organisations. He cross-checked and double-checked on medical facts and inputs, he asserts.
Social stigma
Dispelling myths about the virus is central to this movie. But this director feels that the social stigma is the most debilitating part of the virus. “How did you get HIV?, that’s the question that keeps us away from HIV persons. We feel that he must have visited a brothel or must be gay. That’s how society kills them.” He goes on to explain that his movie does not discuss how Shekhar got the virus instead it deals with his struggle for normalcy. Bhandari says that today a person can live a normal life with HIV, if he stays away from infections.
The biggest challenge for him was, “How can I bring out the story cinematically. I am not making a documentary, after all.” He explains, “When talking to HIV+ people, I had to convince them that I was not going to make another sob story on their lives. Instead, I would make an inspirational tale for everyone.” The “back story” to main plot is in fact man’s will to survive despite the odds.
Producer Avinash Onkar announced that this Marathi movie is soon to be remade in Hindi. The plans are as yet tentative, clarifies Bhandari.
NANDINI NAIR
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
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Kochi
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Visakhapatnam
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