Film-maker Tigmanshu Dhulia, whose last project Bullet Raja bombed at the box office, feels the cause was the wrong casting.
“I think the casting went wrong with Bullet Raja. Many people told me casting was wrong but when I was making the film, nobody told me ... even during editing nobody told me ... may be, I don’t know. We all make mistakes ... it happens,” said Dhulia, who had a huge contribution as a casting director in the critically acclaimed film Bandit Queen.
Dhulia was accompanied by film-maker Dibaker Banerjee, who presented Bandit Queen at the 16th MAMI film festival.
Talking about the casting of Bandit Queen, Dhulia said: “When I was working for Bandit Queen, that time they didn’t have the concept of giving credit to the casting director. Now in last four years people know about casting directors which is a great change.
“I think it’s very important. If you look at old films you will see the same judge, the same junior artists in all the films ... new actors were not getting the chance so because of this the new actors started getting a break. If the casting is right then you have won half the battle.”
“It feels great if there was no Bandit Queen then there would have not been Satya. We used to have art films before but they used to be boring. Bandit.. had Indianess in it. I would not have made Paan Singh Tomar had Bandit.. not been made,” he added.
Directed by Shekhar Kapur, Bandit Queen, a biographical film based on the life of Phoolan Devi and released in 1994, featured Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey, among others.
Dhulia, who has directed films such as Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster, Shagird, Yahaan, among others, says the creativity of the film-maker gets hampered with corporates coming in.
“Yes, creativity surely gets hampered. Corporates are a bunch of idiots like the critics but that conflict will go on forever and ever.”
