Aditya Kripalani opens up on working on his fourth film Not Today

Aditya Kripalani is an author and independent filmmaker. He has in the past written books such as "Back Seat", " Front Seat" and "Tikli And Laxmi Bomb". His debut film was an adaptation of his third book Tikli And Laxmi Bomb based on gender equality. His award winning film was out on Netflix and was trending for over 2 years. He then made his second film Totta Pataaka Item Maal which was again based on gender equality. The film garenered a lot of attention from the critics.

Aditya now has shifted his focus towards relevant issues like mental health for his next 2 films. His film Devi Aur Hero which won the NETPAC award and is making festivals rounds. He is also working on his fourth film Not Today based on Suicide prevention featuring Harsh Chhaya and Rucha Inamdar.

Your first two films were based on gender equality and you last two on mental health, any particular reason for the change?

I think all films have a sense of gender even film number three but in film number three, you will see a very definite transition in terms of that there is gender very specifically being spoken about but we are moving more into the psyche of the male and how a man should not sexualize a woman because after the first two films I really felt it was important for me to talk about that which is why the third film is about that but it also becomes about mental health very largely the third film because, let's say something like sex addiction is a mental addiction mental. It's a health issue. It's like an illness of the mind. So we got to do that in film number 3 and then from number four is where it's a much more gender less view of two people who happen to be man and woman. The fourth film is called "Not today", which I'm referring to which is about a suicide prevention center. The man is 52 year-old man was about to jump and the 24 year old girl who is a woman or lady who's on a call trying to save a murder suicide prevention center why I chose suicide prevention.

Why did you choose Suicide prevention as the topic for your upcoming film "Not Today"? Something that inspired you to do so?

Why I chose suicide Prevention was because was because I had a friend in Singapore many years ago who used to work at an all-night Suicide Prevention call center and the things that he used to talk about was so scary. So I've always felt that a counselor or a therapist can go back home if they're not succeeded at helping you but a suicide prevention counselor. They have to go back home, and if they fail you they have to go back and sleep with the idea that you would have jumped or kill yourself laughter. I thought hat's a very scary thing for a Suicide Prevention Counselor, and I wanted to explore the mind of a suicide prevention Council, especially on the first day.

My experience of being an independent film maker has been that thanks to platforms like Netflix there are at least options to have an independent voice and I respect that. The fact that you're able to have a voice of your own, make a film of you own without commercial considerations or without anyone else's voice in it. I think that's important and very rare…It's only now that we are able to do that with much more freedom

With the current COVID crisis have you had to change your plans of releasing your films? What you do feel will be the future of entertainment?

I don't have to change any of my plants yet because we would always will be OTT platforms and right now there has been a massive increase of consumptions thanks to the lockdown……..actually so there has been no negative affect on my work as off now.

Future of entertainment a lot of it will come back to normal or maybe three to six months from now. For now I think OTT platforms are the current source and will be the major source of entertainment over the period of three to six months.

How was your experience of shooting with Harsh Chhaya?

Shooting with Harsh was really nice, he is a tough nut to crack meaning that he has seen a lot of life and he is very worldly wise person. So that was a different experience for me because I mostly work with younger actors.

What has been your experience of shooting with an experienced actor as compared to relatively fresh actor?

Yeah, I think working with experienced actors as opposed to younger actor sometimes people need to let go of a lot of things from what they've learned and unlearn so that was the new thing. I needed to unlearn things and I think harsh also needed to unlearn a few thing. So that that was my experience future plans are to be making a film called I am know.

What are your future plans?

Future plans are that we are going to make a film, which, 'I am no hero', which we are going shoot by the end of February next year. It is based on a lady cinematographer's life.

Has there been any visual reference for your film "Not Today" when you're thinking of making the film?

So one visual reference for us was the lunch box because it's just about two people who are not able to come face-to-face and they communicating via a mode of communication which only which doesn't allow them to meet of course lunch box is a different kind of story and this isn't a story but there is that one thing that we just cannot meet at all. And the core mode of communication is such that they cannot meet it only allows for a certain kind of communication. So that lunchbox was a bit of a visual reference for us because it's difficult to make an engaging film where people are never going to meet each other. They're only on a call.

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