Hemant Pharande and Nishad Bhoir at the script reading of Ansuni in Kothrud on Tuesday
“When I heard about the official selection, I put my phone aside for two minutes,” Pharande said. Everyone knows the word ‘Oscar’, but explaining the categories and the whole process is another matter,” he said. It has become a bar we have set for ourselves,” said Bhoir. It was a very ideal filmmaking process,” said Bhoir. The next day I was on set, passed the test and started work almost immediately,” he said. This film is about how a young girl escapes from the grip of such criminal forces,” said Kulkarni.
Pune: A congested flat in Kothrud has been turned into a shooting studio. Actors Nishad Bhoir and Hemant Pharande have begun preparing and reading the script for their next short film on an unusually hot Tuesday afternoon. But the conversation returns to Santosh Davakhar ’s Gondhal, India’s official entry for the 99th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category. Last Nov, the Marathi psychological thriller hit the Indian theatres. Then they learnt about the news. “I was overwhelmed, wondering if this was really happening. It felt surreal. Then I called my friends, went to meet them, celebrated a little, and the calls just kept coming,” he added. The film unfolds over a night of ‘gondhal’, a traditional Maharashtrian ritual of music, dance and devotional performance. At its centre is Suman, a young bride trapped in an unhappy marriage, who exploits her former suitor Sarjerao’s obsession with the ritual to draw him into a dangerous plot. Bhoir plays Sarjerao, while Pharande plays Kailash, a sharp-tongued villager who clashes with the protagonist and stirs the pot. Bhoir was excited but the recognition also reminded him of a greater sense of responsibility. “My family was extremely happy, but initially they could not fully process what was happening. “There have been congratulations and recognition, which feels wonderful. But you also start thinking that people will judge your future work against what you have done in Gondhal. “We started workshops and diction practice two or three months in advance to get the Nashik tone right. The speech pattern was very different from standard Marathi and closer to the way people speak around Nashik. Local people helped train us, and we kept rehearsing. Pharande joined the production at the last minute. “I sent a video of my audition to the casting director around midnight, and within an hour or so, I got a call to come to Mumbai for a look test. The actors are now pairing up again for Ansuni, a short film sponsored and produced by FleetGuard Filters, with its president Sanjay Kulkarni also acting in it. The film examines how social media and open online platforms manipulate children and draw them into harmful activities. “Everyone is so deeply absorbed in social media and open platforms that it pulls people in completely, and they rarely look beyond that world. There are elements in society that deliberately trap children through these spaces, manipulate them and push them into harmful activities.
The preparation for the film began months before the shoot.