Filmmaker Anusha Rizvi, who is best known for her debut Peepli Live, recently made a comeback to films with The Great Shamsuddin Family. She got talking about the film and more in an interview with us.
The Great Shamsuddin Family marks your warm and welcome return to filmmaking. What prompted this family saga?
The story for TGSF was written about eight years ago, but somehow got around to be made only now. It began with an observation that women professionals working out of homes have a widely different experience than their male counterparts. The doorbell, especially, gets a life of its own. As I started to develop the protagonist Bani’s character, her life, other characters started getting added and it became The Great Shamsuddin Family.
How much of it comes from your own experiences?
Some of it is my own experience but also a lot of it is observational.
What took you so long to leap from Peepli Live to Shamshuddin. Fifteen years is a whole era
It took me a while for some very good reason and some not so good ones. For one, I have a son, who is 7 now. Kids require time and attention and it’s such a joy being around him that sometimes work takes a backseat. But this isn’t the only reason.
What are the other reasons?
I have been working on several projects, which are in different stages of development, and have been put on hold. A documentary I was working on for two years on the Slain singer Sidhu Moosewala, just prior to shooting TGSF, is on hold due to the changing and complex nature of the story.
Tell me about the bang on casting. Were all these beautiful women your first choices? I missed Surekha Sikri and Zohra Sehgal
The credit for the casting goes to Dilip Shankar. I conduct a lot of auditions and selections were done on the basis of merit. Farida Jalal ji, of course, did not audition but I knew she was the correct Akko.
Curiously, the men in the series come across as wimpish. Is that the hyper active female gaze?
Do they? I found them endearing. Amitav is written like an irritating, old friend but the way Purab Kohli has played it, Amitav has become so loveable, I thought. And from the reactions I am getting, it seems a lot of women like him. Don’t know about the gaze…. Do you find it hyper active? It’s difficult for me to judge from where I stand.
Was it difficult shooting with all these self-willed women in one apartment?
It was a riot. We had so much fun. Everyone used to hangout on the set only, no one was going to their vanities. And, of course, Farida ji is a rockstar. In the free moments, all the younger actresses would surround Farida ji to hear her retell her experiences from the past. Someone would randomly start antakshari which would go on till the shot was called. It was a dream set and really a privilege to work with such talented and generous actors.
What next from you? And I hope you won’t take another fifteen years?!
I am working on another story, and writing it in the hope that I will find money to make it. Regular life for pretty much all independent filmmakers.
The post Anusha Rizvi on the 15-year gap between Peepli Live and The Great Shamshuddin Family, “It took me a while for some very good reason and some not so good ones” appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.
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