Mangaluru: We are aware of movies released in India shot completely on mid ranged DSLRs, but our very own Mangalorean film producer performed a backflip and landed successfully on his feet in shooting a movie on an Apple iPhone 6S. After traditionally making a series of movies, Sundeep Malani comes up with this zero budget movie with absolutely no script or planning. He dedicates it to the struggles of every mother.
The title, “Maa – Ye Cine Maa Hai” despite being self-explanatory about the theme of the movie, also holds deep reverence for every mother and connect to her life and struggles in bringing up her child. Sundeep Malani, the Mumbai-born Mangalorean movie director is known for making movies to uphold several social causes and removing stereotypes but this movie is in pure dedication to the unconditional love of a mother to her child.
Speaking to News Karnataka about his new movie, Sundeep Malani and his team of young and zealous cast made it hard for the conversation to end while they shared their side of the story and the parts they have played in the movie. “Maa – Ye Cine Maa Hai” is a unique movie whose release was also planned to coincide with the 25th anniversary celebration of “Malani Talkies”, a production house run by Sundeep Malani.
Introduction to the Film Cast
The team of this film has a very close bonding with Sandeep as they do with each other. Actors Mahendra Pandey, Sharanya Jit Kaur, Sanjukta Ghosh, Varsha V Acharya, Shubha Raksha, Ranjeet Jha, Shivam Kataria and Bharath humourously said that they looked up to Sandeep Malani as a “khadoos father” since he took care of their every need but at the same time got the shooting done by being a task master.
Mahendra got everyone else to agree with the fact that the whole shooting experience was more relaxed and had a non-nervous element in it. “For all of us, the movie shooting was more like going to a picnic and shooting casual videos of us on a phone. Our director Mr. Malani was never keen on altering our acting since he was happy with exactly what we could deliver”, Mahendra confided.
“Apart from the shooting aspect, as a model turned actor, I did not have to worry about any extra modification in my external appearance since there was no stylist to make us conscious about our beauty and appearance. All we had to do was-be ourselves and play our designated roles, but not act to play those roles”, said Hyderabad based model Shubha Raksha while sharing her experience in the shooting this film.
“In all locations, we were not looked at as movie actors but just friends enjoying a vacation. This made it easier for us to get more natural shots than actually inducing candid behavior in people around to get the essence of a movie”, said Malani.
He further mentioned that the speciality of this film was that there were no dialogues or scripts which the actors had to memorise. “The presence of mind, on-the-spot decisions and dialogues of the actors keeping in mind their roles in the film had made it easier for them to act and reduced the number of retakes”, Sandeep said while complimenting the idea of film.
Ease of Shooting a Whole Movie on an iPhone
According to Malani, “The beauty of shooting on the iPhone is that the spontaneous plans of shooting can be implemented in real time just as we think about it. There have been a lot of instances where we got creative ideas just by looking at the place and without any delay we started recording and we could also check the outcome immediately while trusting fully on the quality of output.”
“For the first time in Indian film making history, the spontaneous shooting ideas were implemented without the use of the traditional clapbook. Another first in the film industry pertaining to this film is that the sets are not designed and neither the backdrops used. The locations used are all natural without alterations in any manner and so was the lighting. It was indeed a little hard to shoot sometimes with natural lighting but we had it calculated and the outcome was perfect”
Setting Values through Movie
“Maa – Ye Cine Maa Hai” shifts focus from the regular Bollywood storyline of glitz and glamour to a more emotional approach towards respecting a person’s family for being the individual’s pillar of support. The movie portrays the moral values of a family and how parents are often taken for granted, but the forgiving nature of parents towards their children will always triumph to glory when the child reaches a state of realisation.
Frankly speaking, Sandeep had kept the whole plot and twist secret from us and we had no idea what we were filming for. It was rather confusing for us to shoot without knowing what the story develops into, but Sandeep assured us about guaranteed satisfaction after the movie is released. This movie has put glamour way behind the culture and family values as the viewer will see many scenes filled with sanskaar to the brim, said upcoming actor Sanjukta Ghosh referring to her experience in this movie.
Dedication to All the Mothers of the World
“The word ‘Mother’ represents life. The earth we live on is considered to be a motherly being since it sustains life. We have done complete justice to the name of the movie by delivering the message in favour of ‘Mother’. My mother Meena Malani has been featured in this film along with me to portray the mother-son relationship.”
It is but an inter-relation between traditions and co-incidence that the number nine has a very significant part to play in depicting the life of a mother. There are nine different avatars of Goddess Durga each of who depicts a characteristic of a mother and at the same time Catholics observe nine day ‘Novena’ prayers to Mother Mary. It also takes nine months of gestation period for a woman from conception to delivery of the child.
Keeping the magic number in mind, the movie is made to revolve completely around nine different stories featuring nine actors along with their lady life-givers. Sandeep Malani has given the highest regard to the matrons in “Maa – Ye Cine Maa Hai”.
Finally, Sandeep promised a wholesome entertainment for every member of the family with five songs and adequate mixture of all the elements of a typical Bollywood movie but with a very new experience of seeing it all.
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