Kanu Behl, who made his directorial debut with the acclaimed Titli in 2015, is excited about his new project.

It’s a short film named Binnu Ka Sapna, that released on MUBI India on December 22 last year.

It’s the first short film that launched on the platform and has already bagged several awards in festivals.

The Telegraph caught up with Kanu for a chat.

Being a feature filmmaker, what prompted you to make a short film?

I have always been fascinated with Haiku (very short form of Japanese poetry), by the economy and the beauty within. It has an order and within the order is juxtaposition, and further within it lies chaos. With Binnu Ka Sapna, I realised I had something that required a certain form and was crying out to be done dialogue-less. I began working on a compression of images and scenes that would possibly cut through swathes of time and could expand the ordinary. In that sense, Binnu - more than having a conversation - was going to explode onto itself. The short film naturally emerged as the best form to open out to all these possibilities.

What is Binnu Ka Sapna about?

Binnu is an exploration of anger and its roots. I’ve realised that it’s very difficult for us as human beings to have a mirror held up to us confronting our worst and most dastardly selves. We tend to look away, or at least say ‘that is not me’. This disturbs me. Binnu looks at this ‘othering’ and takes us into the heart of corners that might exist in all of us and ask questions. So the next time we look at a perpetrator and dismiss them a ‘monster’, we’re able to hear a few familiar notes. This could potentially be the only way to weed out violence and that is what I wanted to search for.

It’s the first short film launching on MUBI India. How does that feel?

I’ve been a long-time admirer of the platform and their curation. In a world full of noise and screens full of tabs, the idea of 30 curated films over 30 days is in itself a fantastic idea. Whatever I’ve seen on MUBI has left me satiated in a most beautiful manner. And to be able to screen alongside some of my heroes and gems of Indian cinema is an honour. Binnu Ka Sapna really couldn’t have found a better home for itself in India.

What are your thoughts on how cinema has gone digital?

It has definitely helped empower filmmakers and democratised the process to a large extent. But having made my first feature on film, I enjoy the discipline and rigour it instils into the very fabric of making a film. I’m also interested in the ‘emotional memory’ aspect of watching; which if we go back to the roots of photochemical capturing of light, takes us back to film. What that brings to the table is intangible and hard to account for either way. In the same breath, David O. Russell’s The Fighter, shot in digital, makes perfect sense. Ideally, we should live in a world where the whole palette, digital or film, is available to the filmmaker and the decision to go either way is purely artistic and not economic.

Do you think that streaming platforms are taking away the larger-than-life movie-making experience?

The debate is open and a large one. The original cinema going experience serves a specific purpose. It’s a ritual coming together of people, designed as a meditative experience to help kickstart a larger churn of ideas in the audience. When a group of people walk out of the theatre together after watching a film, regardless of the type of film, there is a shared transference of emotion. Streaming platforms make that transference personal. It reflects the politics of the times we live in, where ‘tentpoles’ or ‘big ideas’ are the only thing that swarm theatres; as much as our innermost states where solitary consumption in front of a screen is most comforting.

While writing, what is the primary deciding factor whether the script turns into a short film or a feature?

The process is personal and might differ from one filmmaker to the next. For me, the decision on the form comes rooted in the central idea itself. So I would rarely have to go ahead and write a draft to decide whether its a short or a feature. The gestation period and the research process around it by itself gives you a fair idea on what shapes the text wants to take in order to best express itself.

What are you working on next?

I’m editing my feature titled Agra. It’s the sexual coming-of-age of a young Indian boy, charting his subsequent ride into domesticity, attempting to explore modern Indian sexuality and the effect of the physical spaces that we live in. The film is an Indo-French co-production and was developed at the Three Rivers Residency in Italy.