Imtiaz to take short ‘cuts’

Short films and web series have proved to be alluring ventures for many Indian filmmakers and the latest to join the bandwagon is Imtiaz Ali. The filmmaker recently shot for a short film called India Tomorrow, and that has set the ball rolling for his future ventures as well. “India Tomorrow is a collection of all our hopes. And there is no one beyond our purview of hope who doesn’t deserve to have a plan or a dream.” The film was majorly shot on an iPhone. And that, Ali believes, is the beauty of it.

“I feel that this gives me the opportunity to do things that I cannot do in (conventional) cinema — it can be of any duration, there’s flexibility in terms of budget and one can shoot it even on an iPhone. One can upload it the very next day and it reaches beyond our conventional distribution methods. It doesn’t have a limited number of screens and people anywhere from Finland to the Arctic Circle can watch it as long as they have Internet. Also there is no censorship for a broad-based audience.”

Imtiaz has earlier directed two short films titled Window Seat in Kashmir and Window Seat in Rajdhani Express.

Any particular story he has in mind for his next short film “There are a couple of them that are more personality-oriented. There is a very distinct story about a spy and there is a very realistic story about a person in the police department. They are both episodic in nature. There are also many others such as travel-oriented ones, which are very controversial but topical.

About exploring web series, he adds, “I have some plans, we are trying to talk to people and see what’s going on and what everyone is looking for. It will depend on a lot of things. I do not want to make any compromises while coming into this space. It’s not as though I have to do it; if it can be done in its purity, I would definitely love to do a web series.”