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When rhythm dominates
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Arun Khopkar on his documentary films
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My style Arun Khopkar
When Arun Khopkar, well known documentary filmmaker and winner of some 15 National Awards, breaks into ‘birah’ songs of Rabindra Sangeet, or imitates veteran painters and actors to perfection, his shift from mathematics to arts seems
truly justified. If one moment he can be spotted reading a book on profound thoughts in a secluded corner, the next moment, his juvenile jokes reveal the child in him.
Arun Khopkar was recently spotted at the just-concluded Second National Film Festival on Art and Artists conducted by JDCA at Bhubaneswar. He showed his documentary, Colours of Absence at the fest.
Says Arun, “The best thing about this festival is that it has no hierarchy. Such festivals bring several like-minded people on the same platform with only love, affection and respect binding all.”
Arun is known for his perfection and persistence in the films he makes. Though he rues that funds are hard to come by for making documentaries, he does manage to get some corporate funding for his films, on his own conditions. “Corporate houses have no idea of filmmaking and no sense of public cause. When some enlightened administrators like Lalit Mansingh and Pavan Verma sponsored my documentary films, I felt free to work.”
No script
That also has a lot to do with what Arun makes a film on and how. “I never work on a bound script. Sometimes, I don’t even have a script. I do proper research. For instance, when I made a film on Leela Samson, my notes on 16 beats ran into 200 pages. And the plotting of the dance took me three months. To highlight ‘Varnam’ I used two kinds of lights; for compact spaces of abhinaya and scenes,” says Arun.
A documentary for Arun is a work of art. So it shouldn’t be made from the point of view of serving a purpose. “If you create a work of art for a purpose, it won’t last. If you create it out of love, it will last till eternity. It’s like planting a tree or bearing a child out of love. See, the images of Buddha were not created for any purposes, they were created out of love and so you find them everywhere,” he philosophises.
Arun says that getting funds for documentary making is an uphill task and even tougher is telling the government that it needs a different format. “It needs some convincing power. I made two documentaries on tobacco (Confronting Tobacco in 1984 and Tobacco and Oral Cancer in 1997 for the Ministry of External Affairs) and I did them the way I wanted,” he asserts.
Are other filmmakers tuned in?
RANA SIDDIQUI
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