Why I Had To Start Desi Auteur

There are lot of quotes by a lot of people that come to my mind when I think about the WHY of this blog. But something that a mentor of mine once mentioned is what I would like to believe is truer than most of the things about the WHY of this Blog. Why Desi Auteur?

“You’ve got this habit of always documenting and writing whatever pops in your head.”

It’s quite a layered statement. My mentor obviously had an understanding of who I am as person and what I was evolving into. He also, one night after a dinner, mentioned, “You need to relax and not be so hard on yourself all the time otherwise you won’t be fun to be around. You always want to learn and learn and question everything. It’s not fun if done day and night.” A series of relationships in my life can testify what he was saying. It’s not fun to be around someone who is obsessed about something. Being driven for something is good but being driven by something may not be such a good idea after all.

I’ve been writing since Winter of 2012. It’s been 7 years now. I started with journals and then progressed towards writing short stories, essays, non-fiction and then wrote a novel, and then gradually progressed to writing screenplays. I still do write short-stories. Most of the short films that I initially wrote a screenplay for were adapted from my short stories. I shot some of them, and some of them will be shot eventually. I personally see myself as a writer who has to direct and not as a director who can write. I feel, I can express more by words than by visual imagery in my films. Visual side of storytelling is something I am constantly working upon and trying to improve.

I have watched a lot of movies and still ensure that I watch 2 a day without fail. This I do not mention in vain but as a necessity for everyone who wants to make movies. It’s an education. You want to be engineer – you got to study for that. You want to be a musician – you got to study. Likewise, you want to be a filmmaker – you got to study. Watching movies, all kinds, is my study to hone my craft. Another fascination I always had is the French New Wave. And guess what – French New Wave started with film criticism in Cahiers du Cinema. This blog is obviously not trying to be Cahiers du Cinema. What I felt was this – How do I learn to make movies if I haven’t been to film school? How does anyone learn to make movies if they haven’t been to film school? The answer to that question is quite counter-intuitive – You learn by watching and making movies. Practice makes you perfect. Truffaut, Rohmer, Godard, Varda, Malle and such too never went to a film school. I’m pretty sure that film school was never a thing in that era. Heck, Hitchcock, didn’t go to a film school. Probably most of my favorite filmmakers never went to a film school except for Tarkovsky maybe.

Also, I lacked an audience. This is something, I feel, most upcoming non film-school filmmakers have to face early in their career. In past many years I’ve been watching so many movies and barring the conversations with my mentor, there were really next to negligible talks about movies and what they intend to say, how to improve on what they want to say etc. I also have never been a social person (another quirk I guess most people who want to create serious Art can relate to). There is then a question of motivation and drive. Most of the peer-to-peer groups or filmmaking communities that I tried to associate with didn’t want to say their stories via their film – they always had a bias for social causes or commercial manifestos for the movies they wanted to make. I didn’t fit in that community of people. And I always loved Werner Herzog.

I questioned myself in early 2017 – “what is it that is stopping me from making movie?” The answer was clichéd – “I’ll make a bad movie.” Then I recalled that the first story I wrote was no good either, but with time I improved. Then another cliché struck me – Fail fast, learn fast. Okay, I already had dozens of short stories that I had written in past years, I borrowed a camera from my friend, convinced a guy who was studying animation to edit the short film, a close friend of mine who was into movies decided to be cinematographer for it, got one of friend to act in it, and had another friend to do a voice over. I made a movie titled “The Escape”. It was about a man who is drenched in ennui due to his monotonous 9-5 job and refuses to take a break from work to join his best friend on a trip to Australia. Now there are tons of things that can be critiqued about that short film. It’s okay. But I made a movie. I experienced first-hand the problems that I will be facing in the longer run. So, that was the beginning, and I shot a lot of short films, and then did two feature length documentaries in 2019. It’s a long way but hey I’m learning at every step and that is what is most valuable to me.

All this background will allow you to understand now, why I started this blog. I want to document my process of how and what I learn from all the movies that I watch. This blog is in no way a film review blog. Even bad movies can teach us how to make good ones if we can look objectively through those movies. Another question can be raised that why do I need to document it on a blog or on the internet, after all I can document my learning privately also. The answer to that is one that you may not like but is what the truth is. It is being responsible for someone other than you. Into the void, through this blog, I feel, I am answerable to an audience who would visit this blog regularly to explore the world of Art through my lens. This is a very idealistic answer. There is another answer – Brand Equity. Filmammking is a collaborative Art. What is my brand equity? Where will my future collaborators find me and in what shape and form? Where are my future producers going to find me today if not on internet? I don’t have connections with the right people who will bet on my skills. I need to prove and show my skills. This blog is an effort towards building that credibility of what all I know and what all I can do.

Looking forward to this journey that began even before the idea for this blog was conceived.