Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali discusses challenges of filming crafts with award-winning filmmaker Utpal Borpujari and young filmmaker Riah Taipodia from Meghalaya during a conversation at the Chitrashaala short film festival in August 2024.
The first edition of the Chitrashaala film festival, held at New Delhi’s Alliance Francaise, saw among other things a lively discussion on the craft-themed short films that were screened at the festival. The discussion was moderated by film critic Suparna Sharma.
“There is romance in craft, if you look at it from a filmmaker’s point of view. If you look at it from an artisan’s point of view, it’s really drudgery. It’s a tough thing for a craftsman to be a craftsman,” said Muzaffar Ali, whose short film Dastaan-e-Dastkari-Moradabad was shown at the event. “We as filmmakers try to place craft in a milieu that is beautiful. We try to show the legacy of the craft,” he added.
Speaking about the challenges he faced while shooting his film, Mask Art of Majuli, National Award winning filmmaker Utpal Borpujari said, “When you shoot a craft that takes so long … the shooting is very long and boring.” That said he added that Assam was once laughed at for being “slow” but that the slow movement has caught on as a fashion with the rest of the world now.
On the film that was shot in the river island of Majuli he said, “The idea was to document the process (of mask-making) and also make it into a film. Pure documentation is very long and academic. But I had a structure of weaving a story out of it so that people could enjoy watching the film.”
Twenty seven year old Riah Taipodia who hails from Shillong in Meghalaya added to the discussion “The reason I chose this topic is that black clay pottery is mostly done by women artisans. Whenever you hear of an artisan anywhere in India, its always a male. So I wanted to focus on a woman based craft.” Her film Khiew Ranei (Black Clay) was screened earlier in the craft section of the film festival. The film celebrates the heritage of black clay pottery in Meghalaya which is also a dying craft.
Taipodia also touched upon the challenges she faced while making the film, saying, “The main problem I faced was the language barrier, but luckily my cinematographer was also from there so he knew how to communicate with them,” she said.
After the discussion, the floor was thrown open for questions for the audience, making the session interactive.
Chitrashaala was a part of the fourth edition of the India Rural Colloquy 2024, organised by Transform Rural India (TRI). This was a series of conversations and events held from August 1-8 across Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh aimed at inspiring a rural renaissance.
Village Square’s Chitrashaala short film festival focused on stories from rural India.
Date: August 3, 2024
Venue: Alliance Francaise, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
