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The undulating scroll of credits for Indian art films has many names and often one name: Paresh Kamdar. “Edited By, “Mentored By” or “Thanks To” to Paresh Kamdar has been turning up with unerring regularity in the indie productions that have been creating waves at international film festivals over the past two decades.
Kamdar’s credits as editor include Miss Lovely, Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Jaa Riya Hoon and I’m Not the River Jhelum. He has been a mentor on numerous projects, among them Eeb Allay Ooo!, Aise Hee, Kayo Kayo Colour, In Retreat, Humans in the Loop, Sabar Bonda, Songs of Forgotten Trees, Secret of A Mountain Serpent and Shape of Momo.
Frequently working with first-time directors a few decades younger than him, 67-year-old Kamdar closes the gap between a promising film and an excellent, festival-worthy and potentially award-winning film. Kamdar is revered for his brilliance in teasing out a narrative’s inner meaning and respecting its idiom, rather than impose himself on it.
Anuparna Roy, whose Songs of Forgotten Trees was the first-ever Indian production to win the Orizzonti Award for Best Director at Venice earlier this year, described Kamdar as a “guide and a friend”, somebody who despite indifferent health selflessly worked with her and the film’s editor, Ashish Patel.
“He was the one who understood the personal element in the film,” Roy told Scroll. “He saw the rough cut and said, I am going to stand by you. He is an institution – his contribution isn’t just to my film but to indie cinema in general.”
About Kamdar’s unheralded and at times unpaid contributions to alternative cinema, Secret of A Mountain Serpent director Nidhi Saxena said, “He doesn’t ask for money, he doesn’t seek credit, and he has nothing to gain from any of us. And yet he works with such dedication. In a field where gurus are almost impossible to find, he stands above all of us like a quiet, protective canopy.”
Among the films that Kamdar has co-edited are Natesh Hegde’s Pedro and Tiger’s Pond. Kamdar reduced Pedro’s duration without diminishing its essence, Hegde recalled. “We didn’t lose the soul of the film – that is what he brings to the table,” Hegde added. “He doesn’t make you feel that he is experienced and a stalwart.”
Kamdar studied editing at the Film and Television Institute of India in the 1980s. He worked on documentaries, edited Kumar Shahani’s films, moved to television and got back to editing in 2012. He has also directed two acclaimed films, the black comedy Tunnu Ki Tina (1996) and the psychological drama Khargosh (2009).
Alongside editing, Kamdar has been teaching filmmaking at Whistling Woods International in Mumbai. Kamdar spoke to Scroll about his formative years, his experience at FTII, and his journey as independent cinema’s foremost rhythm diviner. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What were your formative years like? What drew you to cinema?
I grew up in a middle-class Gujarati family in Kolkata. My father had a transportation business.
As a child, I used to bunk school to watch films. I watched Where Eagles Dare 32 times. I remember watching B-grade films like Ustad Pedro.
This was a time when art cinema was appreciated. I watched Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome and Kumar Shahani’s Maya Darpan in a theatre. Satyajit Ray was already a star. Roman Polanski’s films, Mrinal Sen’s Kolkata 71, the films of Buddhadev Dasgupta – the environment was ripe for cinema.
Our next-door neighbour was an assistant cinematographer in Bengali films. His name was Joy Pratap Mitra. Satyajit Ray’s production controller, Bhanu Ghosh, would often come over to meet Joy. I used to accompany Joy to watch film shoots.
I joined a commerce college but I got bored of it. I didn’t want to do what the other Gujarati and Marwari boys did – attend college in the morning, come home for lunch and then sit at their father’s offices.
While at college, I enrolled for a German language class at Max Mueller Bhavan. I met some people from FTII. Max Mueller Bhavan used to hold film screenings. My first exposure to international cinema was a retrospective of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I was blown away.
My friends from FTII told me, go there, that is the place. I went there in 1983.
What were your initial impressions of the Pune film institute?
Previously, I used to watch films in secret. At FTII, I felt liberated. I had a room to myself for the first time in my life. The atmosphere was vibrant.
In my batch and the batch above, there were 33 students from Kolkata. We were called the East India Company. I also met a whole lot of people from other parts of the country.
It was overwhelming. We were swept away by the beauty and power of cinema. FTII was like a dream, but also a disorienting experience. The teachers deliberately programmed difficult films in the first week itself. But it was also fantastic. It set us up correctly, told us that we had so much to discover and learn.
Most other colleges ease you in. These days, breaking the mould is not the fashion. Students are treated like clients. Too much disorientation is not considered good.
When I look back on those years, I feel that the curriculum was too heavily tilted towards European cinema. That was great, in that we realised new ways of seeing and constructing films. But somewhere, it displaced us from our backgrounds, gave us the feeling that our own cinema was rubbish.
While I was there, we went on strike because we were not allowed to change courses midway. Although I had enrolled in editing, I wanted to switch to direction, but it wasn’t allowed.
Strikes are a part of the FTII syllabus. I went back to FTII later to conduct workshops and guest lectures. I also remained connected with the institute through various strikes. You can say that I was a card holder.
I supported the strikes because over the years, a certain kind of apathy set in. Later on, a certain kind of agenda began to tear down the place, despite a wonderful student body throughout. For instance, the imposition of Gajendra Chauhan as the chairperson of the governing council.
Did your approach to cinema develop at FTII itself, or later?
I was still soaking it all in. The idea of developing one’s own voice didn’t start then, but happened outside the institute.
When we graduated, many of us didn’t know what kind of films we wanted to make. We were borrowing ideas because we were desperate for subjects. It was a hodgepodge of influences. We had contempt for realist cinema but deep down, we were insecure because we knew that we hadn’t yet found what we wanted to do.
What did you work on after you graduated in 1986?
I had started getting assignments while I was in my final year. Niranjan Thade was my senior. I worked on his documentary on the sugar co-operative movement in Maharashtra.
I did a few other projects. I travelled too, for instance for a film by Nandini Bedi that was critical of the Amul co-operative movement. The film institute was tilted towards fiction, so this was a big learning. Documentaries also opened up my physical world and revealed India to me.
Rather than going back to Kolkata, you moved to Mumbai.
I was initially resistant to the idea of settling in Bombay. But I kept getting offers.
I worked on Nandan Kudhyadi’s documentaries about scientists. Since I eventually wanted to be a director, I took up only those editing assignments where I could also be a part of the scripting and research.
I edited a few films by Kumar Shahani – Tarang, Khayal Gatha, Kasba. That was wonderful. The aesthetic was all about an attitude toward cinema – the kind of aesthetic rigour, the courage to do what one believes in despite hostility.
I had an intuitive sense of what Kumar was trying to do. During the edit, the conversations we had were like a continuation of his workshops at the institute. The effect he wanted was never spelt out but absorbed. In any case, the films were not led by narrative.
Did you ever think of working in commercial projects?
I didn’t get any offers. I did get an opportunity later, but I realised that I wouldn’t last. I was asked by Mansoor Khan to edit Josh. I started working on the film, but it went on for five years, so I opted out.
In 1997, you directed your first film Tunnu Ki Tina, about the seriocomic adventures of a Walter Mitty-esque character.
In 1994, I got a National Film Award for Nandan Kudhyadi’s documentary on Mallikarjun Mansur’s life and music. I thought it was time to make my own movie.
Tunnu Ki Tina was about a middle class family living in a chawl in Bombay. I drew on what I had seen and experienced. The film starred Sunil Barve, Rohini Hattangadi, Veerendra Saxena, Renuka Shahane and Rajeshwari Sachdev. KK Majahan was the cinematographer. Rajat Dholakia did the songs.
It was the first film for a whole lot of people – production designer Nitin Desai, the actors Sadiya Siddiqui and Ninad Kamat, Vishal Bhardwaj, who did the background score. Ahmed Khan did the choreography.
In its idiom and themes, Tunnu Ki Tina is different from the films you had been watching at FTII, or the art house movies you had been editing.
Tunnu Ki Tina was very different from the kind of esoteric cinema I had been working on. It was closer to middle-of-the-road cinema. I realised that I had to be truthful to myself. You can only make the film that you believe in, the one that is a part of your system.
The film was about a guy who was seeing the world through commercial cinema. It would lapse into black humour and nightmarish scenes. I used the language of the mainstream critically.
Did Tunnu Ki Tina get a theatrical release?
Although I started working on the script in 1991, it took a few years to make and was premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 1997.
At the time, the National Film Development Corporation was co-producing films with Doordarshan. The general perception was that nobody would watch an NFDC film. I wanted to make the film anyway as a learning experience.
After a single screening for the unit, the film was barely seen. The censor certificate was obtained against the rough cut, but the project’s completion was delayed.
By this time, I needed money. I took up an assignment at NFDC itself, to edit trailers for the films that were being shown at Doordarshan. This was partly strategic.
One day, I ran away with the cans of my film so that I could make a VHS copy. I started showing this tape to critics. Luckily, they loved it. Write-ups about the film kept appearing every now and then, but nobody was getting to watch the film.
There was criticism of the fact that after many years, NFDC had produced a thought-provoking, entertaining and engaging film. This forced NFDC to release the film. But it was a truncated release in a few cities across the country.
Did this experience dishearten you?
The film was appreciated. In fact, people went overboard. They said, after Bimal Roy, here is Paresh Kamdar. I was hugely embarrassed.
The heartening thing was that at least in Bombay, every screening had more viewers than the previous screening. Had a producer pumped in money and released it like a commercial film, it would have worked.
But I was in a bad space financially. I had run up huge debts. Luckily, I got television serials to direct, which I did for a few years. I did shows like Tanha as well as Gubbare and Rishtey for Star Bestsellers.
In 2009, you made Khargosh, a beguiling film about a young boy’s entanglement with an older woman.
I always wanted to get back to directing, but I wasn’t clear about what I wanted to do.
I had started teaching at Whistling Woods. The producer of Khargosh, Rishi Chandra, had been a student there. He said, I have one crore rupees. I want you to make a film, and I will assist you.
He is a fantastic guy. He said, nobody on the set should know that I am the producer. Also, not a day more than a year on production and not one paisa more than a crore. He paid people as soon as their work was done.
The film wasn’t released in cinemas, but it came out on DVD.
How did you get back to editing?
My second innings began with Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely in 2012. I also edited Gyan Correa’s The Good Road in 2013. I was a consulting editor on Anup Singh’s Qissa the same year.
I was initially a consultant on Miss Lovely, but since Ashim liked what I was doing, I became the film’s co-editor.
Miss Lovely was a very interesting experience. Ashim had showed me about half an hour of the film, which he had edited. It was so intense, so fast. I said, if you keep your film at this pitch right in the beginning, when the narrative starts to slow down, the film will dissipate. You have to calm the film down. Don’t cut so much, don’t generate so much energy so early. As Miss Lovely progresses, it becomes darker and then slows down. You have to create that arc.
A film’s internal balance has to be understood and maintained. If you go bombastic in one scene but the other scenes don’t have that kind of energy, the film begins to fall apart unless it has been deliberately written that way.
What is your editing philosophy?
The basic principle is to discover and align with the filmmaker’s vision, which is reflected in the rushes. Only then do you get a sense of the final film. The execution happens much later.
You have to catch the spirit, the pulse, the pace, the inherent rhythm, the soul of the film. You have to see how the film can be shaped. Then you try and find consistency. You do this through conversations, observation, trial and error.
Not many directors are eloquent. Some filmmakers don’t know how to begin a film, how to enter it. They have imagined a film, but they haven’t yet realised what its soul is. I often come in at a point when it is critical to the project. The white hair helps too.
We try out different approaches. Beyond a point, I step away. I have to maintain the line. I can’t impose my views, and I wouldn’t want to. Otherwise, I would be directing the film myself.
You are an indispensable part of the current wave of Indian independent cinema. What has been your experience?
The younger lot of filmmakers is very authentic and very invested, even though they may not have formal training. They are quick learners. They are very smart with craft and technology. But some of them don’t have a benchmark, an artistic goal. They impulsively arrive at something after watching many films.
I bring in a sense of form. I don’t talk in conceptual terms. I discuss the edit in terms of craft.
Many of the projects I have worked on are difficult films. In some of them, several editors had already tried and left the projects, so the films were stuck. Sometimes I get paid and sometimes, I put in my own money.
For Songs of Forgotten Trees, I advised Anuparna Roy to shoot the opening scene in the forest, which has a song that is like a leitmotif in the film. There was a character singing in the story, but it came later. For Amar Colony, I suggested the opening, in which the family gathers for a meal after a funeral.
One of the hallmarks of your editing is allowing for measured pacing and silence, for a film to work its magic on you.
Filmmakers are scared of maintaining slowness and silence. I tell them, don’t create clutter, don’t pretend your film to be something other than what it is. Let the film grow. What you are trying will not work if you rush through with it.
It’s paradoxical, but what will happen is that the film will be fast-paced but boring too, because it isn’t creating any experience. So my advice is, slow it down.
Sometimes, a film’s flow is hindered by closely following the narrative logic. Remove the removable. Find out what can be taken out. Film is temporal, like music. If the flow is interrupted, it hurts the audience, even if it is logical.
In some films, I weigh in on the ending. Some filmmakers never know when to stop, since they have so much to say. One film went on for 15-20 minutes after it should have actually ended. I said, this is crap. After all, there has to be some advantage to seniority.
The filmmaker did this grudgingly. Ironically, at an awards function, the film won an audience award for ‘Best Ending’.
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