Umesh Kulkarni – Central News Hub

U=Me: Umesh Kulkarni’s Latest Short Film Takes on AIDS Stigma’

While the film will have its India premiere at NFAI on April 11, there will be a special screening for guests in Mumbai on April 12…writes Sukant Deepak

Known for his socially relevant films and for playing a crucial role in the revival of contemporary Marathi cinema, filmmaker Umesh Kulkarni’s latest Short ‘U=Me’, focussing on destigmatisation of AIDS, will be released on YouTube on April 11. It all started when Dr.Sanjay Pujari from Pune who has worked with infectious diseases for over a quarter of a century approached veteran actor Dr. Mohan Agash who recommended Kulkarni for the project. “In fact, Dr.Pujari is himself a cinema buff and understands the reach of this medium,” Kulkarni tells.

Adding that it was an intentional decision to release the Short, which has been to multiple film festivals abroad, on YouTube, the director states: “We wanted the 25-minute film to be accessible to all. It was important that a movie with such a subject was not restricted only to the film festival circuit,” says the director about the film written by Dr Vivek Bele. Ensuring that the movie turned out to be an engaging fiction experience and not just message delivery, the director points out: “Thankfully, excellent actors like Shweta Basu Prasad and Arjun Radhakrishnan came on board for this project by Arbhaat Films.” While the film will have its India premiere at NFAI on April 11, there will be a special screening for guests in Mumbai on April 12.

For someone like Kulkarni, Shorts are an extremely important format as they allow directors to approach stories in their peculiar way without the pressure of market forces. “With feature films, the entire dynamics change as there is much investment involved and thus the pressure of recovering it. So, a Short film gives you more freedom as a form. And in today’s time, it is easier to share, thanks to platforms like YouTube. While everyone has been talking about Malayalam cinema nowadays, not long back critics were raving about Marathi cinema.

This FTII pass-out points: “A few young filmmakers including me were watching Marathi films and just could not relate to them. And then we decided that we should make films in our language that were not only relatable but also brought up contemporary social and political issues.” “People like Nagraj Manjule, Nikhil Mahajan, Sujay Dahake and I jumped in. Some of us are from film schools. That is how this whole new wave of Marathi cinema came in. The audience response was excellent,” he notes. While the Marathi new wave lasted for around 10 years (2005-2015), things have now become tough for young directors. “Let us not forget that Hindi films do well in Maharashtra. So, we are pitted against big guns and not many theatres release Marathi films. It is a tough battle, but we are fighting it.” Instrumental in setting up several film clubs across Maharashtra and other places, he feels that every town must have one. “Film literacy is extremely important. It is paramount that people get exposure to cinema other than Bollywood and Hollywood. They should also be introduced to different formats. More film festivals will also help,” he hopes.

Kulkarni has been spending a lot of time in Kashmir lately and holding workshops there but makes it clear that there are no immediate plans to make a film there. “It is the people and their culture that fascinate me,” he smiles. The director who made ‘Murder in the Courtroom’ for an OTT platform asserts that digital mediums have proven to be a boon for directors like him. “The platform was very supportive and the docu-series reached a wide audience,” concludes Kulkarni who is currently working on another project for an OTT platform.

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Kulkarni wanted to unearth what’s life like in a fringed society

“The fact that one does not know what the seemingly harmless stranger walking towards you in a crowd is capable of can be really disturbing,” this writer and director of the docu-series tells…writes Sukant Deepak

During a night patrol with the cops in Nagpur, he was told about a person they recently arrested. Someone who had bought a new knife. To ‘test’ that it worked fine, he stabbed a stranger. Not really satisfied with its performance, he stabbed another one.

National Award-winning filmmaker Umesh Kulkarni, whose docu-series ‘Murder in a Courtroom’, being streamed on Netflix as part of ‘Indian Predator’ recalls the incident and admits that scary is the violence a man on the street is capable of.

“The fact that one does not know what the seemingly harmless stranger walking towards you in a crowd is capable of can be really disturbing,” this writer and director of the docu-series tells.

Kulkarni, who attended the recently concluded Dharamshala International Film Festival, back in its physical avatar after two years, says that for a long time he had been wanting to work on the Akku Yadav case. In 2004, a group of around 200 women hailing from Nagpur’s Kasturba Nagar, the place which Yadav had terrorised for many years, stormed into the public courtroom and lynched him to death.

The director, who researched for six months before starting the project recalls that for many years he had wanted to explore this incident.

“Finally, I decided to take the plunge and went to Nagpur. We met a lot of women from Kasturba Nagar. Of course, it was difficult to approach them, but the real challenge was in making them trust us. We were accompanied by an excellent research team from ‘Vice’ and shot multiple interviews. There were so many layers to what had happened on that day in 2004.”

There is violence in the house, and on the streets — the director says he wanted to unearth what is life like in a fringed society.

“So many people exist in one person. Who are we really? When it comes to the system, there are so many loopholes — we are still following so many laws and regulations drafted by the British for us. Is it not absurd?”

Talking about his first outing with OTT, this alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, who has made critically acclaimed films in Marathi like ‘Valu’ (‘The Bull’), ‘Vihir’ (‘The Well’), ‘Deool’ (‘The Temple’) and ‘Highway’ admits that he is essentially a film person.

Let’s stop looking at art in binaries: Filmmaker Umesh Kulkarni.

“This was a short so it was like a feature-length — and just three episodes. Docuseries can be very challenging, and I wanted the experience of dealing with them. Also, Netflix and Vice were very supportive — no interference of any sort.”

He feels this medium (OTT) has its own strength and one can explore much in it.

“But yes, we need to understand the format better. Everything should not look like a series. The challenge is to create something which has its own power, and I want to explore that.”

Stressing that he would call it a ‘film’, Kulkarni adds, “Let us stop putting things in binaries and look at the possibilities of intermingling. We are living in times when different art forms are collaborating. Frankly, we have shot the interviews like fiction, and fiction like a documentary. Everything has come together to create a new form,” concludes the director, who is currently finishing writing a new Marathi film.

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