Laurels all the way

Oscar entry

Brothers Anup and Nirup Bhandari cannot be happier. They catapulted to fame with their debut ‘RangiTaranga’ which has been nominated for the Oscar this year.

“I didn’t believe it when a few close friends and family told me. It was only after I looked up the Oscar website and confirmed the news did I rest. But the news is yet to sink in. The excitement is not only about being nominated but that people across borders have recognised and appreciated our maiden venture,” says Anup.

 The movie is the directorial debut for Anup while  Nirup makes a debut as an actor. Anup recollects how the two of them got down to working on the project. “Most of the characters in the film are people I’ve known for a long time or grown up with.

Nirup and I would spend several hours just discussing and imagining how the final product would look like.” After several drafts, the two brothers zeroed in on the final script. Anup confesses that he had no experience in filmmaking when he started out. “I have not assisted anyone.

I have learnt everything by making short films, watching countless movies and listening to great filmmakers talk about movies. So, on the first day of the shoot, it was overwhelming when more than a 100 people were waiting for my instructions. I took it up as a challenge,” he adds. However, the biggest task was to get people used to his style of working. “A lot of people found my style of working quite unusual. When you don’t follow the set path, people assume you don’t know what you are doing but luckily things fell into place pretty fast,” he says.

When they set out to work on ‘RangiTaranga’, little did they realise that they would get so much love and recognition. “We just wanted to tell a good story and because ours is a mystery-thriller, the challenge was to portray our thoughts on screen accurately. The director plays an important role when working with a subject related to mystery,” adds Anup.   

If Anup’s debut project is a blend of emotion, romance and mystery, his second venture is a romantic-comedy. “If ‘RangiTaranga’ was designed to keep the audience hooked to the screen with edge-of-the-seat moments, our next project will make people laugh,” he explains. He says that he wants to work with every genre, “There is no dearth of subjects and that’s why I don’t want to restrict myself to a particular genre.”