Of ideas and informal addas
thehindu.com
Of ideas and informal addas November 17, 2016 00:00 IST Updated: December 02, 2016 15:56 IST
Next time you are in a café, keep your voice down. If there is tall man with a scribbling pad and an amused expression, he is probably listening to every word you are saying. He is interested in stories about you and me, our relationships and problems at work. Filmmaker Sandeep Mohan, who is coming out with his fourth feature titled Shreelancer , says he gets all his ideas from these informal addas. He says, “There is something about coffee that makes people open up. The conversations are so entertaining, even better than watching a film! You realise people are leading such interesting lives.” Like his previous film, Hola Venky , which was about a confused middle-aged man who did not know how to react to independent women, this one too deals with an urban matter. Shreelancer tries to understand the journey of a freelancer called Shreepadh, a guy in his mid-20s. “Twenties is when you are trying to cope with your life,” he says. “You are on the cusp of breaking out from youth and entering adulthood. Your friends are getting hitched and you are trying to settle down with a stable job. It was nice to go back to that time,” reflects Mohan. The independent filmmaker introduced the country to the concept of the Great Indian Travelling Cinema, where he took his films all over India to showcase them in cafés, corporate spaces and at other alternative venues. “The idea is to keep the buzz going. I am also planning a small theatre release this time,” says Mohan about his upcoming project. “And, after that I will try to sell it to Netflix or Amazon.” The 98-minute-long Shreelancer will have Mohan’s trademark humour. This time, he says, it is more situational and adds it was an exhausting affair. It involved a lot of public transport, bikes and taxis, he says. In this film, he’s working with five or six producers. This way, the pressure on each is much less, he explains. “That lets me enjoy my creative freedom,” he says. “They are not breathing
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