Whole Chawl would go silent to help us during shoot: Ganesh Shelar director of “Gadhul”

I grew up in the chawl where the film is shot and I used some of the experiences I had while growing up there. We faced many difficulties in shoot right from day one, but got good support from people living in the chawl where the film was shot. All of the chawl would go silent to help us in shooting the film, said director Ganesh Shelar while talking in a Press conference for his film Gadhul in IFFI 2019 at Panaji, Goa today.

 

I consider Satyajit Ray and Umesh Kulkarni as some of my favourite directors. I decided to go into film-making when I was appearing for degree examination of B.Sc., hence I did not even  finish my last year and jumped right into film-making, he added.

It took me one year to write the script for it. We shot it for 7 days. Post production work went on for 3-4 months. We made it on the budget of 3 lakhs. Total 6 associate producers put money into the film. I even did crowd-funding from my gym also. We recouped half of the money spent on film when we won the best short film award in Kolkata Film Festival, Ganesh Shelar added.

Shelar’s journey began four years ago after he attended Umesh Kulkarni’s workshop and was explained how films should be made. “I wrote my first short film Jokhad(Yoke) that was my first effort made in just Rs. 40,000. I had my savings and worked around it.” He said.

Swapnil Sarade, producer of Gadhul, who was also present comes from an architecture background. “We worked without expecting anything in return. I took the risk. We had a good team and they all worked for free. Everyone’s enthusiasm was high. We had a lot of problems but we sailed through.”

Sarade acknowledged the support from senior actress Smita Tambe. “She’s a professional actress and we were young. She worked with us for 12 hour shift and last day it went to 18 hours”.

Talking about his future plans Ganesh Shelar said, “I am writing one more short film now. I would also like to do feature film.”

He advised budding film-makers to look into their own lives to gain insight and ideas and told them to have mental connect with the film.

Synopsis

Gadhul is a Story of a 14 year old son and mother whose relationship becomes turbid after one incident happens on the death anniversary of his father.

 

***