Author: Nirav

As I work hard in completing the detailed screenplay for Paani, I come across something that I am sure other creative people suffer from – at least I hope they do. How do you really know if something is really good or not unless at that moment of writing your feel a surge of inspiration – a surge of emotion ? Something inside you that tells you a big ‘yes’.
And how many of those inspired moments do you need in a film both in conceiving it and in the execution of it to make it inspirational for the audience ? For the film to transcend, as it were from prose to poetry ? The problem is that you could wait forever for inspiration – sitting staring out of the window as I am right now. When people ask me why I have made so few films, the real answer is that I trust my heart and not my mind. And to live through the heart all the time can be completely and utterly exhausting, frustrating and ultimately self destructive. So where does one find the balance ?
In just getting on with it. To trust that in disciplining oneself into the mundane everyday process of just being efficient and writing, the inspiration may (and usually does) come and suddenly you are alive, and your eyes blur with tears and your heart beats faster. Your fingers type without you asking them to, and you are inspired !!
Remembering that not every moment in a screenplay can be moments of great inspiration. First you will never finish it, but also you will exhaust your audience’s emotions in the 2 hours they sit in the movie theater. There is the technical aspect of screenplay writing which says that “between great inspirational moments there need to be pauses and connective tissue to ease the viewers mind to the logic of story telling. It is likely that without these pauses the viewer at the end of the film will just go ‘huh ??’
PAANI is a love story based in a City where the Water Wars have broken out between those that have Water and those that do not. At a time when Water has become a weapon of social and economic control.

View of the Church behind the Hotel in Innsbruck where I normally stay. Beautiful as the church is – this is the first time in years the locals recall there being no snow here on Christmas. It’s the same lament all over the Ski slopes too. There has been little snow, and of course the word on every persons lips this year is ‘Global Warming’. And everywhere the feeling in Europe is that the politicians have let us down.
Of course media is playing the blame game. Some blame the US and Obama for not following the Kyoto treaty – while others blame China (and India too) for playing a great game of one upmanship with the US and President Obama. Whatever happened it just showed that the current political system is completely inept at solving any global problem.
Who does the planet belong to ? Surely the fundamental resources belong equally to all beings on this planet – no one can argue that the air belongs to everyone. Every Chinese man woman and child has the same right to the fundamental resources necessary to keep life going as does every Western man woman and child. No more no less.
So why are we looking at Carbon footprints of nations as a whole ? It should be measured per capita, and if so, the whole equation changes. Will the West ever accept that ?

Why should a film be just one event ? Is it possible to share the evolution of a film – and create a community around it ? To share my thoughts and those of the others around it so the ultimate experience for the viewer is more personal and involved ?