Shahid Kapoor, Vishal Bhardwaj and Sriram Raghavan were present a week ago when Amole Gupte and the children of his school Aseema for impermanent slum children screened their first film at the M.E.T College in Bandra (Mumbai).
It was a moving moment for Shahid who empathizes deeply with issues related to children and has in fact done a film on children’s education Paathshala for his childhood friend Ahmed Khan, and has also done a film Wah Life Ho To Aisi with child actors at the helm.
Shahid was so moved by the filmmaking effort of the children at Aseema that he has now offered them all support and help.
Says Amole, “Shahid, Vishal and Sriram were deeply moved. They feel only the truly innocent can make a film as devoid of cunning as Aansoon Bane Moti. Even the title was chosen by the kids themselves.”
And now the kids from Aseema will be making one film every month. “The first film was exactly ten minutes twenty seconds long. Now they’re going on to their second. M.E.T College has kindly consented to lend all their editing equipment for the kids. So now the kids at Aseema are the only regular pre-teen and adolescent filmmakers from any part of the world.”
Amole, deeply affiliated to children’s causes had to cringe before shouting at a child actor in Kaminey. “But that was my character. Not me. I convinced myself into doing all kinds of political and domestic things that I’ve no patience for, or affinity with.”
Amole Gupte has cut his hair… something he had been waiting to do from the time he began playing Bhope, the parochial Marathi goon in Kaminey.
“It came with the territory. And now it’s gone. I think ‘The Look’ for my character Bhope determined to a large extent my selection for the part. Vishal Bhardwaj liked the way my hair flowed. It went well with the way he imagined my character. Then of course there was my 27 years as a cinema student. That also must have influenced their decision.”
However the long hair began to bug Amole. “Somewhere my hair becomes too much a part of the character. I was waiting for the film to be over so I could get rid of it.”
Amole is hoping he won’t be flooded with villainous roles after Kaminey. “More than that I hope my character Bhope doesn’t obstruct in the work that I most enjoy doing with my children.”
— By Subhash K Jha
