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Mahesh Manjrekar is back with his latest film City of Gold. The director talks HOW did City of Gold happen? The film is based on a Marathi play written by Jawant Pawar. It was called Adhantar. It was a very successful play and ran from 1997 to 2002. I think. He came to me with the story idea and I was so ashamed to find out that I didn’t know anything about the incident. It looked like a project I wanted to do and we got down to write the script immediately. In 2004 we had the script ready. Then it took some time to get the producers and for filming to begin.
The movie is about the plight of Mumbai mill workers? Correct. By 1980s various mills had sprouted up around Mumbai, which employed lakhs of people. Then as the city progressed, the mills were bought over to make way for high-rise buildings and malls. Not much thought was spared for these people. I’m not saying progress shouldn’t be made. Definitely as time goes by there has to be development but not by trampling people. Tell us about the star cast We needed actors who could look like mill workers. Also I didn’t think characters in this film would suit the stars, so I decided to primarily go with seasoned theatre actors. Of course, people like Karan (Patel), Sachin (Khedekar), Satish Kaushik and Seema Biswas are also there. I’m very happy about the cast. Why do you think stars wouldn’t ‘suit’ your characters? Because then it adds the extra baggage of their stardom. It becomes really difficult to peel off their charisma and see them as actors capable of playing such character roles. Also it was small budget film. Regarding making an offbeat film, do you think our industry is better prepared now or is Hollywood still the destination for ‘different’ or non-mainstream cinema? I’m not in awe of Hollywood. They do make some great cinema but they dish out their share of trash as well. You see, I think it’s the kind of cinema that you make that matters. You can do a mainstream movie like Kurbaan or Chandni Chowk to China with big stars and yet it still flops. You do a good film like Aamir or A Wednesday and that becomes a hit. The thing is that the audience doesn’t want to see trash. So, what does it take to woo the audience? There’s no formula to
it, I think. We just need to do good cinema that surprises the
audience. Look at 3 Idiots, the reason that it was so
successful was its amazing script. The audience is pretty intelligent
now and finally we are seeing them rejecting the cinema that does not
live up to their expectations. Stars are no guarantee for success.
Take all the flops Yash Raj has had recently. — IBNS
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