Seven years after the powerful and poignant Pink, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, better known as Tony, is ready to show his next Hindi film to the world. Lost, starring Yami Gautam Dhar as its feisty and fearless protagonist, has been set and shot in Calcutta. The “emotional thriller”, as Tony describes it, boasts an eclectic ensemble of actors, including Pankaj Kapur and Rahul Khanna. The film streams on Zee5 from February 16.
Over a late breakfast last weekend, The Telegraph caught up with the always affable Tonyda on his new film, why art is not a race for him and what propels him to make cinema.
Before we plunge into Lost, what is it about an Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury film experience that is so special and so personal that it makes every actor who has worked with you so far say that they have been spoilt for life?
As a director, I have to know my actors, I have to love my actors and I have to be with my actors. I spend so much time with my actors. I take them out for meals, they come home.... Before we even shot Lost, I ensured that I interacted with Yami (Gautam Dhar) a lot. It was in the middle of the pandemic and we spoke so many times on Zoom. For me, I have to know about and believe in all my actors... and that’s how they will believe in me.
Cinema is a philosophy, cinema is life. As a film-maker, I live with every film I make for at least a year, and it becomes an indelible part of my life even after it’s done. It’s like making a baby. It’s like nurturing a life. It needs to be done right.
Has that been your process and philosophy right from your first film? We live in times where everything is transactional and most people jump from one film set to the next...
I am not that kind of a human being. I fall in love... I am not a onenight stand! (Laughs) After my first film Anuranan, I got tons and tons of offers to direct films... I didn’t do any of them. I have taken substantial time between all my films. The idea has to marinate in my head for as long as it has to... I have to be pregnant with my thoughts and then deliver a film.
Also, I am a person with very few desires. I need an AC car, I don’t need a Mercedes. When I made Anuranan, we didn’t even have a big enough apartment. This is the first time in my career that I have shot another film (a yet-untitled film starring Pankaj Tripathi, Parvathy Thiruvothu, Jaya Ahsan and Sanjana Sanghi) before the release of my previous one. But then, the idea for Lost came to me five years ago... I thought of the other film six years ago....
Of course I sometimes want to make two-three films a year, but I can’t. It’s a real skill to be able to juggle so many films. But I need to be completely involved with all the films I make, even beyond the set. I always want to be like this... everything that I do has to be done with utmost care and conviction. I can’t do anything in a half-hearted manner. I am not here to win, I am here to participate. For me, my whole life is about participation.
It’s been close to seven years since Pink released. In an industry where out of sight is out of mind, you must have faced a lot of questions about why it’s taken you so long to make your second Hindi film, especially after the kind of impact that Pink had...
Pink has given me a lot. I also learnt a lot from the experience of Pink. I don’t get frazzled by negative talk or what peoples’ perceptions are about me. Also, it takes me time to make my films because I like gathering experiences. In my younger days, I used to row... I even tried learning karate (laughs). I sing completely out of tune, but I always wanted to sing. I am so fond of classical music that I tried playing the sarod... I was an utter failure! But that doesn’t matter...
You are inherently an explorer...
Yes. I come to Tolly (Tollygunge Club) every day and take the same pictures. Everyone asks me why my frames are the same every day. But they aren’t... the perspective is different every day.
Coming back to the long gap between Pink and Lost, I didn’t allow it to get to me. I did ads in between, I did web series... even thinking is a job. I am not in any hurry in life. I don’t tom-tom my achievements on social media. In fact, I post pictures of flowers, food, the scenery... I like doing these things.
I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. I am not in competition with anybody. I strongly believe that one shouldn’t reduce any form of art into competition. Art is not a race where my horse has to win.... I love it when someone else makes a good film.
With Rahul Khanna on the sets of Lost
What was the starting point of Lost?
After Pink, I wanted to tell another hard-hitting story. Shyamal (Sengupta, writer) came up with this story of a journalist in Bombay. That was a real-life story, but it didn’t happen. Then a friend introduced me to someone who really inspired me with this story of a young, feisty female journalist. In our country, a single woman has to face a lot of problems. If you are a journalist and if you choose to walk on a tough path, there are a lot of hardships. I came up with this germ of an idea that in today’s world, power is more in the mind than in the body.
Shyamal started jamming with that idea. We brought in real-life incidents, imagination comes from the atmosphere that we are in...
Yami has not just acted in Lost... she has considered this film as her own and taken responsibility for it. We were right in the middle of Covid-19 but she shot wherever I asked her to. She is amazing! I am very lucky that I had collaborators like Pankajji (Kapur), Rahul (Khanna), Pia (Bajpiee), Tushar (Pandey)….We were very hands-on on set. Everyone helped everyone. KK sang his last song for this film. I called up Pankaj Kapur day before yesterday and the first thing he asked me was, ‘When is our next journey together happening? Woh pehle bolo.’ That’s my greatest gift as a film-maker. People from here... Koushik (Sen), Suman (Mukhopadhyay) and Arindam (Sil) are excellent in the film.
‘There are some films in which nothing really happens on screen, and yet so much happens in terms of subtext. He really believes in that kind of cinema.’ This is what Yami had told me about working with you right after she wrapped up Lost in September 2021. Was working with her everything you had expected it to be?
She is a very spiritual person. She has something extraordinary... she will be a friend forever. This is an emotional thriller and I needed someone who could bring that emotional intensity in a tangible way on screen. Yami fit the bill perfectly.
You just told me that Lost is an extension of Pink. Would you call it a companion piece to Pink?
The genre is the same. There is a reason why we have done this film... everyone knows what ‘No means no’ in Pink went on to become. This film talks about fearlessness, about responsibility...
And you always wanted to set Lost in Calcutta?
I was initially planning to shoot it in Lucknow, the script was a little different then. But it changed organically and took another form, which made Calcutta the best city to shoot it in. Wherever I shoot, the city becomes a character, and that holds most true for Calcutta.