By ROHIT MITTAL

I am from Bombay. And I studied Law in Pune. In Law School, all I ever did was watch films, read books and make shorts. Most of them were extremely surreal or metaphorical and always had this mystery element to them (at the time, I didn’t know it was any of this). I mean, yes, they were bad. But you know, they were important. In the larger scheme of things, they were necessary.

But later when I graduated, I had to take up a job that I hated. It was the most horrifying experience of my life. I still have nightmares because of it. So I quit the job and decided to go to film school. This was the best experience of my life. I learned a lot. Mostly by making many many short films, and because of the kind of time I had to think about what I liked and what I don’t.

After that, I worked with Roger Corman. And it was really amazing, mostly because of all the films I got to see there. It was a whole new world. But life in LA was hard, and my only goal by then was to make a feature. I didn’t want to get stuck with a small job and live in the US just for the sake of it.
So I came back. And hung around for a while in Versova. Made new friends. And later, started making my film, Autohead.

Initially, when I finished writing the script, I could gather enough funding to shoot and edit the film. Once I finished editing, I started showing it around to people to get more funding to finish the film. That’s when Amit Verma, the other producer, came on board. While I was finishing the post-production of the film, I submitted a version to NFDC’s Film Bazaar. And it got selected in the ‘Film Bazaar Recommends’ section in the viewing room.

It was at the bazaar that the film started to get an amazing response from all the delegates there — who were mainly festival programmers, producers, agents etc. It became the most viewed and talked-about film there. Until that moment, honestly I didn’t know many people in the international circuit. So it was very, very helpful. I showed the film to Anurag Kashyap; he loved it and recommended it to a sales agent in France. That’s how they picked up the film. This is also one of the primary reasons Autohead traveled so much.

We premiered the film at the 40th Hong Kong International Film Festival: where, again, it got amazing reviews and a great response from the audience. Then we traveled a lot more, mostly to genre fests around the world. We went to Sitges (Spain), which is perhaps the biggest genre festival right now, before premiering in India at MAMI. And we won an award at the Bifan film festival in South Korea. At all the festivals, we were mostly running to packed houses with overwhelming reactions. It’ll take a while to sink in. A lot of people thought the film was shocking and unlike any other indie Indian film they had seen before.

To be honest, I never really thought that the film would travel so much and will be so well received. Because when I was making it, I had no idea who I was making the film for. I just wanted to execute this experiment. I couldn’t see so far ahead. And then maybe see how it turns out. I didn’t know anything about the festival circuit or its potential. Which was, in a way, good because it didn’t corrupt my vision to make a film that is specifically for festivals. I wasn’t handicapped my the future.

I think that’s how one should make any film. Without wondering what festival it will go to or what market it fits best. Everywhere I traveled to, the audience was very different. They reacted differently. And it became the greatest experience of my life. It’s truly a different high. One thing I hope for is that considering how Autohead has been received internationally, it will encourage more people to make genre or form-based films, more bold and radical films. There should be no limits. There are no rules.

Because somehow, I feel we have been too focused on getting the film made in order to get it to a certain type of A-list festival in a very secure and safe way. This should change. So that the international markets at least know what independent filmmakers in India are really capable of, our real unpolluted potential and voice, besides emotionally manipulative social drama. I didn’t go to the ‘Big 5’ festivals but still, mine is one of the most talked-about indie films of the year.

I am not saying that we should not go to the biggest or most prestigious festival, but we should focus more on making the movie so that it can stand by itself. I am being selfish when I say that because I really want to make extremely bold and radical and genre-infused and formal films in the future. But the more films like that out there, the better it is. So yes, it has been a great learning process so far. I wouldn’t change a thing. And the response to Autohead has been really memorable, encouraging, and the foundation of whatever I will make and experience next.