Last year, audiences greeted Ashoke Viswanathan’s film Hemanter Aparanha with a standing ovation at the 29th Kolkata International Film Festival. Produced by Amit Agarwal’s Adarsh Telemedia, the film is finally releasing in the theatres today. Ahead of the release, t2 caught up with cast members Anusha Viswanathan, Rwitobroto Mukherjee and director Ashoke Viswanathan for a chat on the film. Excerpts:

How did the festival appreciation feel for you all?

Anusha Viswanathan: It was a surprise to see people willing to sit on the floor, and stairs, standing and watching an entire full-length movie.
Rwitobroto Mukherjee: It was somehow relatable to all generations.
Ashoke Viswanathan: I am still mystified! But I can give an anecdote. It was director Mrinal Sen who had visited Paris where Jean-Luc Godard was present. He told Godard that in the 1982 film festival there were huge lines to see Godard’s films and Godard was absolutely mystified and said, ‘That never happens’! Mrinal Sen told him that was on the first day but on the second day there were no lines. Godard said, ‘Yeah, that is more like it’! (Everyone laughs)
Anusha: Hoping that won’t happen here. Even though it is an Ashoke Viswanathan film, it is not hard to understand. It deals with something which all of us went through, the entire world went through... the Covid-19 phase and the loneliness that came with it and we had to battle that.

The film shows the Covid and post-Covid times. When was the film conceived and what was the thought that led you to script it?

Ashoke: I started writing it towards the end of 2020 which is the end of the first phase of Covid but we started shooting in 2022 and finished in 2023. We have Covid in it and coming out of the different phases and different waves. Also during Covid, the war started in Ukraine, which is also a running motif in the film.
Anusha: It is weird when my character talks about the fourth wave. When you are constantly plying with crisis after crisis then you have no choice but to become numb. With that numbness you become insensitive and it has repercussions on your mental health.
Ashoke: The mental health aspect is there in the film.

The film hints at an increasingly concerning social issue— the loneliness of the superannuated life. How have you approached the subject in the film?

Ashoke: I had thought about it very much but when we started writing the story. I wrote it with the protagonist also in my mind. That’s what led us to the thought about the superannuation. I thought about the different resonances. The character that Rwitobroto plays, Rajesh, is sensitive to his predicament. There are scenes in which the two of them share a relationship.
Rwitobroto: I feel it is extremely well captured. We have centered the story on the outskirts of Calcutta mainly. We get a peek into how their lives are. I have seen films where we have seen a theatre stage and live performances but one thing we haven’t seen is what goes beyond that. The rehearsal room, the simple adda over tea and puffed rice, the light-hearted relationship between a senior and junior, the fun they have. The hierarchy within the group. So many things are interwoven…an old man not willing to do Facebook. These are very honest and genuine approaches towards the slices of life we often do not get to see on the screen.
Anusha: In this film, Satyapriyada (Mukherjee) is so much senior to us but he is a debutante in this film, the hierarchy is not necessarily divided by age in our film. Meghla is the didimoni of the group. She did it beautifully and we have seen multiple conversations happening in the room at the same time…basically how we observe a room from the audience’s perspective. We basically see everything at the same time. It is all happening together.
Ashoke: Papiya, the character, is a subaltern. who is new to theatre, in that sense she is an outsider. Satyapriya plays a character called Sudhin and he is coming into the theatre for the first time. We have someone who is mentally challenged, he is part of the main cast. So we have a lot of these subalterns. If we look at the theatre groups of the Sixties, Nandikar or Bohurupee from the 30s and 40s, the director used to be the supremo and sometimes the secretary of the group and he used to be in charge of everything. Here we have a director who is an outsider, there are senior members in the group who are older than the director. There are juniors of the group who manage the group. So, that is a stereotype I tried to break.

Anusha and Rwitobroto, when you both were chosen for the film, how did you approach it?

Anusha: I didn’t come into the film having any expectations. I came to experience and learn. This film has very interesting elements which could make people think... they will also find certain things quirky which will arouse their curiosity.
Ashoke: I have used humour throughout the film. Humour doesn’t mean you laugh uproariously all the time. It is witty and interesting. Like the character of Binodini in the film.
Anusha: We have a few dream sequences. We see a lot of storms happening but the storm is a paid actor! We are creating the situation. (Everyone laughs)
Rwitobroto: I often think when we have the time as an audience member, we often do not take into consideration the things that we are presented with. Later we try to find archives and repent that we did not go to the theatres. I think it is so important to be associated with films which have a social responsibility, have a personal and individual responsibility towards stories and this film is so responsible to the entire world around us. It has tons of personal stories of the characters presented in a macro lens which actually talks about a universal view. Being recognised by someone whose films are studied nationally and internationally feels great.
Anusha: Unfortunately not regionally!
Rwitobroto: People from West Bengal don’t care about someone until they become a part of the nostalgia. This was a masterclass for us.

Anusha, how was it working with your father?

Anusha: It was not tough. I was a little apprehensive because I have never extensively worked with him like this. He is a specific, detailed director. He will tell you exactly what he wants and how he wants it. But we still have room to make our own choices within that. I am not calling him autocratic because he is not but he is very specific about what his vision is and then it is upto the actor to be able to create their version of his vision. That’s a very interesting way to work. We never had the entire script. We had the story but from which point it will go to which point we did not know that. Which is why it was a surprise for us to watch the film for the first time. Rwito and I were joking after watching the film for the first time that now we know all the answers. Every scene is a performance of its own. We had to pay attention to the little things.
Ashoke: Performances in cinema is a little different from theatre. In cinema, the final performance is a product of the actor, director, cinematographer and the editor to some extent. The film is a product of all these things
Anusha: In most of the cases, we behaved instead of acting, except for the part where we were on stage or in the film within the film.

Rwito, how did you deal with not having the script?

Rwitobroto: I believe that I am very open-minded to whatever directions come my way being an actor who submits to the vision of the director. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me and this was also understanding the ways layers work in cinema. This is the first time I am playing an actor on screen. Rajesh is a theatre actor, during rehearsals he is doing rehearsals and then he is doing a film also and he has a personal space, too. All these four areas are also covered in the film itself. I had so much fun shooting the stage part. All of us, I think. We shot it at Jogesh Mime Academy and our cinematographer also captured it so well.
Anusha: It was very authentic. Like in suburbs when they do a drama. They adapt famous plays but then the costumes and wigs are not super refined because that’s the budget and that’s what you would have access to in the suburbs. We have ill-fitted wigs and weird costumes. (Laughs)

Anusha and Rwitobroto, you share a great bond off the sets too. What’s the best thing about working with each other?

Rwitobroto: Genuinely the best part about working with Anusha is the comfort level and not faking the chemistry. The kind of personal and professional respect we have for each other as actors and as human beings and as friends helps us to understand what the scene demands. I think both of us have become much more professional. That’s one thing that has developed parallelly where we have evolved as genuine human beings also.
Anusha: We don’t need to rehearse a lot. We just look at each other and we know the tone of the scene that it is going to be. There’s a certain amount of peace, I feel. I know that our scenes will get over fast because neither of us forget lines and even if we forget lines, we kind of have each other’s back. We gossip so much! We keep each other in a good mood, so that we can work longer hours without becoming irritated.

Ashoke, with the kind of response you received at the the film fest, do you think the audience has also evolved?

Ashoke: The audience is much more aware definitely. When Griffith used the close-up shot for the first time, people wondered about the rest of the body. Whenever we are doing something slightly different which is breaking the narrative or which is counter-culture, you have to build it up in such a way that it is interesting.