GITANJALI RAO, director, True Love Story
The idea: “I wanted to tell a story about first love, and the stories of those thousands of street kids who migrate to Mumbai and struggle to survive. The two ideas came together as a first love between a boy and girl living in, and living off the streets of Mumbai, and how Bollywood is a big influence on everyone who lives in this city. The actual animation and post-production for the film took about 14 months; my team of four artists helped speed up the process. My first film, which was 15 minutes long, had taken me three years of working alone.”
Watch it because: “The film, like most of my films, has no dialogues. This gives me the advantage of [creating] a heightened audio-visual journey for the viewer. Even though it is colourful and flamboyant like Bollywood, it is also gritty and real, when the story moves from fantasy to reality. And the part I love best is doing this seamlessly so the viewer doesn’t know when he/she travels from one to the other.”
Cannes Calling: “I was not expecting selection, but I feel much more experienced now and not as dumbfounded as my first trip. As they say, things start to work only after the third trip at such big festivals, and I am more hopeful now.”
SHORT TAKES
You’d love a one-on-one at Cannes with: My dream director, Pedro Almodóvar!
Your films are inspired by: So many things; I cannot separate my inspirations any more. It’s as much Wong Kar-Wai, Franz Kafka and Jun Miyake, as Guru Dutt, Begum Akhtar and Amrita Sher-Gil, as well as forests, jasmine flowers and cats!
The last film you watched and loved: Rust and Bone (2012) by Jacques Audiard.
Films you’re looking forward to at Cannes: All the films at Critics’ Week and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep.
By Vatsala Chhibber May 14th, 2014