A decade later Rajan succeeds in releasing 'Dance of the Wind'

Comments [ 0 ] By Indra D. | 08 February 2008 | 3:04pm

Ranjan Khosa It is nightmarish for any filmmaker when his film is not released for 10 long years in his own country, while it keeps bagging awards and appreciation abroad. And this was reflected on the ‘Dance of the Wind’ director Rajan Khosa when he was addressing a gathering at the premiere of his film in Mumbai recently.

During the premiere of 'Dance of the Wind' Rajan Khosa said he wished his juniors don't have to go through all the problems he had to go through. He said that believed now India has started accepting independent films which have to say something different from the regular masala Bollywood films.

When he was asked what took ten years to release the film, he boldly said, "It was nothing that I could do on that. We have released the film across 25 countries and we tried to release the film in India 10 years ago, but the distributors were not ready to take the film. Maybe the audiences were not ready for independent films which have a message and say something. But thanks to the multiplexes, now there are audiences for these kind of films too. Now the filmmakers who make independent films will not have to worry much and companies like PVR are promoting these kind of films. I am grateful to them. Today, the time has changed and we have a set of audiences who want to see these kinds of films."

This film is very close to Rajan's heart as the story of this film is a slice of his life. This film deals with the teacher-disciple relationship, the environment where he grew up and so he always says "My vision of the world has nothing to do with what I learnt at film schools. If there is anything called vision then I have received it from philosophical teachers in the Indian oral tradition". This is the reason why he chose the subject of teacher-disciple relationship in the Hindustani classical music. The film basically says that when one starts learning from the guru, he basically starts imitating the guru in a way and to find one’s individuality one questions his guru's world view.

The film has gone to several international film festivals and won many awards like ‘Best Director’ at the British Asian Film Festival in 1998, ‘Audience Award’ at the London Film Festival in 1997, ‘Public Prize’ and ‘Best Actress Award’ at the Festival of Three Continents and many others. But when Rajan was asked which award is his favorite and the one he wanted to win, Rajan laughed and said that he never thought it that way. He has studied all his life from ace colleges like Royal College of Arts in London and at the Film and TV Institute of India, while his formative years were spent at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. Does studying at these best c Dance of the Wind olleges make him more successful? He says "In a way it does. But what life teaches is nothing that can be learnt at colleges and I would say experience of life makes a real and successful person. I would say I was just lucky to keep getting scholarships and admissions at these colleges."

He also loves to paint and he learnt it from his father, his guru and even his grandfather was a painter. The Kashmiri Brahmin wishes he could paint on a regular basis, but it is sad that a filmmaker can't really take out time. He wanted to make a film on the teacher-disciple relationship because the subject was very close to his heart. On why he didn't make films in last 10 years, Rajan says, "There was not much of artistic freedom and I thought short films had a lot of freedom and was busy with them. 'Flower Girl', one of them, was widely appreciated. Also I did productions. I tried production twice, but now I am ready to start my new feature film based on Anton Chekhov's 'The Black Monk'."

In a show of solidarity, all independent filmmakers gathered at the premiere of ‘Dance of the Wind’. Prominent personalities included Ketan Mehta, Sudhir Mishra and others. When Ketan Mehta, who has made critically acclaimed films like 'Maya Memsaab', 'Bhavani Bhavai', 'Holi' etc. was asked why he choose to support Raj Khosa and his film 'Dance of the Wind' he said, "Because Rajan is a very good film maker and I have seen his work and I believe the time has come when India has started accepting independent filmmakers and there are audiences who appreciate these kind of movies. We have been fighting for a space for these kinds of movies for past 20 years and when finally these films have started getting acceptance we are part of this movement." Sonu Anand -(Sampurn)

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