'Goodwill of Shaitan helped me a lot'

Expectations were quite high post the success and critically acclaimed film, Shaitan by Bejoy Nambiar. While his directorial debut made a mark despite having mostly newcomers, his just released David has been in news for controversies and its unusual storyline.

Hoping for a triple treat with David releasing in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu – the Hindi one has three different stories of three Davids belonging to three different time zones, while the Tamil version revolves around two Davids, again belonging to different times.

Talking to Metrolife, Bejoy shares, “The goodwill of Shaitan has given me access to many things in life. After the film I have been given more interesting opportunities to showcase my talent in filmmaking.”

Bejoy who grew up in Mumbai, changed track after finishing an MBA from the University of Wales and began making short films like Reflections and Rahu. After assisting Mani Ratnam on the sets of Guru and Raavan, he went solo with Shaitan.

Talking about David which was shot in London, Mumbai and Goa, the director says, “It was very challenging to shoot this film as it has three different stories and hence, they needed different treatments. That is why I used three colour palettes for each of them. So, I had to treat each part as a different film altogether.”

Specifically talking about Monica Dogra, who plays the love interest of Neil Nitin Mukesh in the film, Bejoy says, “After watching Dhobi Ghat I was stunned with her beauty and really wanted to work with her. She also suited the character well because Noor (the character) speaks with an accent, like Monica does in real life.”

Bejoy also finds credit in Hollywood. His ticket to Hollywood was Sony Pix’s reality show Gateway to Hollywood. Winning this contest gave him an opportunity to intern with Hollywood producer Ashok Amritraj and his production house in Los Angeles.

Although, the director is a new entrant, he says the fraternity is experimenting with new ideas now. “It is an interesting phase for Hindi cinema. It is going through an experimental phase and accepting a lot of alternative cinema.”

Bejoy, who wants to work with lots of actors in future, took a rather diplomatic stance when asked about the objectification of women in films nowadays. “I am a new entrant and cannot comment on all this. I don’t objectify women in my films, so no comments on this one.”