Mumbai: Art Director Sumit Mishra, whose directorial debut ‘Agam’ starring Tara Alisha Berry, Rahul Bagga and Ashmith Kunder is running in theatres, recently spoke about the physical setting of the film.
Having spent a considerable time of his life in Varanasi during his academic journey, it holds a very special place in his heart.
Talking about how Varanasi played out in his mind when he was working on the story, he said: “Varanasi is the city of spirituality, holiness and tantra. It’s ironically called life in death and death in life mystery city. Since I did my studies in Varanasi, it has always been my favorite city, the view of Banaras and the mystery of Banaras has always attracted me to compose something.”
He further commented: “During the university days, the characters and subjects scattered in the ghats and streets kept getting entangled in the mind and the anecdotes later took the form of the plot of ‘Agam’. In fact, ‘Agam’ is a story of a different mood, different color and life journey, spiritual journey and tantra journey.”
Sharing his work experience with Tara Alisha Berry and Rahul Bagga, he said: “After myself living the character of any story, it is difficult to choose the right actor and actress but when you have a mature actor like Rahul Bagga and a smooth and settled actress like Tara Alisha Berry, then it becomes easy to bring the story to the screen. This was my first feature film as a director, but the collaboration of Rahul and Tara and the ability to get into the character quickly made filming for ‘Agam’ easier for me.”
Shedding light on the meaning of the movie’s title, he added, “The meaning of ‘Agam’ itself is a difficult road and it is true that the film ‘Agam’ is a journey to discover the secrets of the streets of Banaras.”
Expressing his shooting experience in Varanasi, he mentioned, “So shooting in Banaras is very comfortable for me. We shot with a small unit but the atmosphere on the sets was very creative and cooperative. The shooting of our film was completed without any stress in a very healthy and positive atmosphere.”
When asked about his view on opting for theatrical release of the film in a pandemic situation, he said, “After the post production of the film, my producer and I decided that first it should be sent to the film festival all over the world, and the journey of film festival of ‘Agam’ started since then. The film was selected and appreciated in many international film festivals, the most important of them was the Cairo International Film Festival”
“Towards the end of the film festival journey, we started battling the Covid pandemic, which had a very bad effect on the cinema halls. Now that the situation seems to be getting a little normal, we felt that without delay, we should screen the film in whatever cinema hall is available in our radius”, he concluded.
(IANS)
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