Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Photo: Bhagya prakash k.

Distinct style Arun Khopkar

Khopkar was spotted at the Second National Film Festival on Art and Artists conducted by JDCA (Jatin Das Centre of Art) at Bhubaneswar. He showed his documentary, “Colours of Absence”, at the fest.

Khopkar 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 such as Lalit Mansingh and Pavan Verma sponsored my documentary films, I felt free to work.”

That also has a lot to do with what Khopkar 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.” A documentary for Khopkar is a work of art. So it shouldn’t be made with the aim 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 for eternity. It’s like planting a tree or bearing a child out of love. See, the images of the Buddha were not created for any purpose, they were created out of love and so you find them everywhere,” he says.

Arun says if getting funds for documentaries is an uphill task, telling the government that it needs a different format is even tougher. “You should be able to convince them. 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?

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail