Anurag Kashyap’s advice to new filmmakers: Be ready to face consequences that come with certain choices

“That also will be a block that you have to face, convince and cross. Being a filmmaker today is more than just setting up a camera and taking shots and getting actors to act,” says the director. Haraamkhor, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shweta Tripathi, was one such project. The movie released this Friday to great reviews but it was stuck with the censor board for a year.

Anurag, who is one of the co-producers of the Shlok Sharma-directed movie and has locked horns with the censor board in the past as well, says luckily filmmakers have the option to go beyond Pahlaj Nihalani, though he stops short of taking his name.

“…there is a process in place. There is always an option to go to the higher court. I am saying we have had far more liberal CBFC and everything before. Right now also it’s not CBFC that’s a problem, it’s just one man who is there and who does things on his own whims and fancies. “But I think somewhere the constitution gives us the space to go beyond him and we always go beyond him, it’s just that he gets upset when things go out of his control.”

Anurag is full of praise for Shlok and says he is keenly looking forward to what he does in cinema.”I think he is a phenomenal director. He has a lot of things that I lack as director. He has this unique sensitivity to lot of little things that I miss out in life. I look at the larger thing, he has this knack of picking up on tiny little things, he is very sensitive. The way he is going, I think I might really want to see what he does with filmmaking.”

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The director is confident that with the help of internet, the independent filmmakers will bring about a change. “They are changing. Now the internet has come in a big way to help them and the audience is also moving towards there a lot. So, the big cinema houses might not give them space, which they often give to big films (that also is another big fight). “But they still have a better support system today than it was there earlier which is the internet. A lot of films are coming there. I mean we had a hard time sometimes for our films to be released and it might be now online exclusive for people to watch.”