THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The intermittent applause, the spontaneous silence and the sigh of relief should be familiar to Prashanth Nair by now. ‘Delhi in a Day’, the only Hindi film screened in the competition section of International Film Festival of Kerala, did not fail to engage the audience, just as it did at the Indian Film Festival of Houston, where it won the Best Feature Award. The IT professional-turned-director is evidently on cloud nine as kudos pour in after the film’s first screening on Saturday morning. “I had heard of the very good audience here in Thiruvananthapuram and was looking forward to their reception of the movie,” he grins as the joy lights up his enormous eyes.Prashanth has had no training in film making except for a short workshop that he attended in New York. So what gave him the courage to give up the security of a twelve-year-old career in the dream city of Paris, we ask. “Cinema was always my passion. And when my friends said, if you have to really learn something, you should go ahead and do it, I thought they are right,” he says.When he was back in Delhi, where his parents are settled, he found the theme of his movie beckoning him. Contrary to what the name suggests, ‘Delhi in a Day’ does not limit itself to a chronicling of one day’s events. The rich metro life is captured in all its farcical grandiose and is juxtaposed with the lives on the fringes. Melodrama is neatly kept in check even as the film plays out an intentional parody of Bollywood that colours the aspirations of the poor.“The dancing sequences were deliberately added in the film because I wanted to bring in scenes that resembled Bollywood sequences. Song and dance sequences are quite unusual in French films which I have been watching for a while, but I like all the drama about Bollywood. Besides, to these people who work in the rich household, Bollywood is the idea about a dream life.” He agrees that debutante actor Anjali Patil, who plays the female lead, betrays her formal training in dance. “But she is talented and was a pleasure to work with. I am sure she will go places,” he says. “I knew I will get the right people if I looked in National School of Drama and was lucky to find Victor Banerjee and Anjali. Kulbhushan Kharbanda is obviously an established actor and so is Lillet Dubey.” Prashath is already working on his second feature, ‘America’, a movie showcasing the big American dream and set in rural India. A Malayali by birth, Prashanth can only manage a few words in his mother tongue, as he spent his childhood in Europe and elsewhere, travelling with his IFS parents. He hopes to have some of his relatives watching the next screening of his film at IFFK. “They will be coming down from Kochi,” he says.
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