Bulgarian Director Konstantin Bojanov On His Cannes-Bound Hindi Film The Shameless
NDTV
The Shameless was more than a decade in the making
Bulgarian filmmaker and visual artist Konstantin Bojanov is headed to the Croisette with a gritty female-led Hindi film that plays out in a fictional city in north India. Titled The Shameless, his third fiction feature is one of 18 titles in Un Certain Regard at the upcoming 77th Cannes Film Festival. The Shameless was more than a decade in the making. The arduous journey took a lot out of him. But the film has turned out to be well worth the time and effort. "I started the project 14 years ago," says the writer-director. "There were points when I felt that the film would not move forward. Then there would be one small step and a door would open. It was a very slow process." Bojanov had no plans initially of producing any work in India. But in 2005, he shot a three-screen video piece in Varanasi. It was shown in museums and galleries. "I still continue to make art although I also have to find time for my filmmaking. I move between one and the other," he says.
The genesis of The Shameless was serendipitous. Bojanov stumbled upon William Dalrymple's Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India in a Brooklyn bookstore that he frequented near his house in New York.
"The book gave me the idea of making a documentary cross-referencing four of the stories through characters with similar backgrounds and predicaments and examining larger themes of love, sexuality, art and freedom of expression within a society in which the caste system is still very powerful."
Due to limitations of budget and multiple postponements caused by the pandemic, "the period of prepping and the shooting days were vastly inadequate," he says. "But we (the director and the cinematographer) did our best to discuss not only the cinematic language but also the break-down of scenes," recalls Bojanov. Bojanov spent months researching the stories, travelled 10,000 kilometers across India and tried to find characters for his documentary. "I met a number of devdasis is northern Karnataka. One of them, Reshma, fascinated me."
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