The Hindu Business Line : Finally, it's out!

Making films based on real-life events can be tricky business. Depending on which point of view the filmmaker chooses to espouse, he or she can earn flak either way.

RAHUL DHOLAKIA, director of the film Parzania - S. Subramanium

There once lived a little boy with his sister and parents in a housing society in Ahemadabad. His name was Parzan. He and his family were swept up in the madness of the riots, which engulfed the town after the Godhra massacre. Parzan went missing. His parents are still searching for him.

Director Rahul Dholakia's wonderful film Parzania finally releases today. It refers, specifically, to the beautiful make-believe world that Parzan and his sister create when they play, as children are wont to. And is an ironic counterpoint to the ugliness of the real world, which tears the siblings apart.

Dholakia, who has strong familial ties with Gujarat, was in the US when the riots happened (just a month before, he had shared great moments with his Parsi friend and his family). During the round of frantic phone calling, he found out that his friend's little boy had gone missing.

A moral responsibility

Making Parzania, Dholakia has said in his notes on the film, posted on the Web for everyone to see, then became both a social and moral responsibility. The names of the family have been changed, for obvious reasons, but it is based on what happened during those terrible days in Ahmedabad.

Those of us who saw the film at the international film festival in Goa in 2005 know exactly how powerful it was: it pulled no punches, in showing us the face of hatred and the people who orchestrated the carnage.

After the screening was over, several viewers went into aggressive mode, asking whether the director was anti-Hindu. How dare he make a movie, which showed the religious majority in such bad light?

There was enough potential for serious bad blood right then for us to know this too — that the film would find a hard time getting a release. And that is exactly what happened. No one was willing to touch Parzania: it has taken nearly two years to see the light of day.

Dholakia had brought his film to New Delhi's Cinefan last summer: the screening was a huge success, but no distributors came looking for him.

Again in December 2006, he was in Goa, a whole year after his film created such ripples, participating in a round table which deliberated on the `ways and means' — that favourite conference phrase — of getting independent cinema out there, in the theatres.

The people around that table, some old war-horses like Ketan Mehta and Saeed Mirza, and some new ones, came up with workable ideas. Again, for those of us who have been on the fringes of such deliberations, it was like old territory re-visited.

The `Web' advantage

But there was one tool that filmmakers 20 years ago didn't have, and that was the Web. If a movie didn't get a release through regular channels, they would be condemned to lie in mouldering cans.

Now, things are different. Even if they haven't seen it, enough people have heard of Parzania through online journals, reviews and blogs. Enough momentum has been generated that on the day of the release, at least those who have read about it and are curious will show up at theatres.

The rest will depend on word-of-mouth activity and active campaigning by the people who have been involved in the film.

Riots have always been a touchy subject. Even an out-and-out commercial project like Mani Ratnam's Bombay, whose item number featuring Sonali Bendre was at least as incendiary as the scenes of the violence on Mumbai streets, ran into trouble with the Shiv Sena. And could get a release only when Bal Thakeray gave a thumbs up to the film.

Parzania, by comparison, is a quieter, much more intense film. It is in English, and it has an American `sutradhaar' (always good to have a foreigner for an objective view) a scholar who is in town to study Indian culture.

And the performances are superb. Naseerudin Shah plays the film-theatre projectionist (that's what the father did, in real life) who loses his son; Sarika, the mother. In an interview on NDTV recently, Naseer called it one of his top three roles. Coming from him, that's saying something.

And those of us who have seen the film agree. Sarika and the two child actors are very good too. Part of the problem that commercial Hindi cinema has with picturing kids is that it turns them into mannequins: here, Parzan and his sister are as real as that child sitting next to you.

From real to reel

Making films based on real-life events can be tricky business. Depending on which point of view the filmmaker chooses to espouse, he or she can earn flak either way: if Dholakia had papered over what really happened, he would have endeared himself to those who were instrumental in sparking off the violence and keeping it going.

The fact that he had the courage of his convictions is obvious in the struggle he has had to find an audience for his movie.

There could be glad tidings too for Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday, which has also been waiting in the wings for a long time. It recreates the story of the people behind the Bombay blasts, names names, and shows how the investigations by the police unravelled the plot.

Kashyap has waged a lonely battle for both his movies, Paanch, which is irretrievably stuck for reasons best known to his producer, as well Black Friday: hopefully, the latter will be out next month.

Parzania will carry information about the lost boy, whose parents haven't lost hope. Watch it.