Seema Biswas, a new recruit from Delhi’s National School of Drama when she was chosen to play Phoolan Devi in Bandit Queen, recalls being sick for days because of what she had to project in front of the camera. But she says that although Kapur was just two films old, she could trust him completely. “His commitment was out in the open, you could not only see it in the way he was directing us, but you could sense the energy on the sets.”
The script of Paani, Kapur’s current preoccupation, has been developing slowly; he announced the film five years ago, before Elizabeth: The Golden Age released. The story is set in 2020, when Mumbai is divided into two cities, one above a mammoth flyover that sucks all the water that’s left in the city and away from the lower city, where labourers and immigrants live. It ends in a life-altering clash of these worlds.
“We all know that water is the next oil. In the characters of Paani, you’re likely to see yourself 10 years from now when water will be a commodity,” Kapur says. The fruition of a story that has been marinating for 15 years is a slow, painful process, but Kapur isn’t going back to the Hollywood studios soon. “I don’t know when I’ll go back there,” he says, without any hint of regret or remorse. This stint at home also involves holidays with his eight-year-old daughter Kaveri.
Kapur’s assistant, 23-year-old Aditya Shah, was recently sent out to shoot in parts of Mumbai where water is scarce. Kapur, a passionate blogger (www.shekharkapur.com/blog), has put up the video on his site. Shah says: “Shekhar would narrate a scene to me and ask me what problems might arise while it’s being shot. On another day, I would get a different question on the same scene.” As with most of his projects, Kapur hasn’t given himself a deadline for finishing this script.
Remi Adefarasin also talks about Kapur’s need to involve people in his creative process. The London-based director of photography, who lit up the Gothic sets and outlandish costumes of both Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age and made their frames look like giant frescos in motion, says: “During pre-production, he spoke to us a great deal. Not about hard facts, but about how to approach our work philosophically. It was truly inspirational and the most unique thing about working with Shekhar. He didn’t tell me what to do, but where we were going. He’s a master of getting people hooked on an idea.” Adefarasin has been director of photography for films such as About a Boy and Woody Allen’s last, Match Point.
Kapur’s last venture was a short film for a series of love stories set in New York, called New York, I Love You, produced by the late director Anthony Minghella and scheduled to release in 2009. Minghella was a close friend of Kapur’s and before he died, asked Kapur if he would direct the script that he had written for this film and was supposed to direct himself. The experience of filming it early this year, Kapur now says, gave him a sense of déjà vu. “It was worlds apart from the structured set-up of Hollywood studios. The New York independent film world is creatively alive. Everybody pushes the boundaries, there’s an interesting chaos which took me back to my days of making Bandit Queen.”