12X12 Untitled

Sooraj, the last remaining death photographer at the burning banks of Manikarnika, is going through troubled times like old Kashi. The ancient town is being demolished to build modern beautified pathways. The death photographer is out of work because of the fancy smartphones with exquisite cameras. He stands at the crossroads - either he continues seeking dummies to click, or he looks for greener pastures beyond the singed banks of Manikarnika to secure a better future for his family.

A death photographer clicks the last photographs of the dead brought for cremation at Varanasi's burning banks. He charges differently for different sizes. I saw immense cinematic potential when I met a real death photographer during a trip to Banaras. I wanted to know how he frames his subjects, how he adjusts the exposure on his camera, where he focuses, and how he copes with the fact that he is clicking dummies whom he can never instruct or ask to smile! I decided to weave the contemporary realities of Varanasi, an ancient town stuck in a time bubble, around this character. I believe old Kashi is migrating into oblivion to make way for the new, modern Varanasi. River Ganges is a witness to this migration. The town thrives on death. And death, according to Hindu belief, is a migration to the other form or world. Thus, very organically, migration became the underlying theme of my film. Every character in the film, including the protagonist, goes through a migration. I decided to shoot this film on celluloid very early in the writing stage. I wanted to document the transitional phase Kashi is going through on film. The protagonist' father's death is a major event in the film. I have shot the before of the event on one lens and the after on a different focal length. The color palette is warm in and around the ghats (burning banks) and gets cooler in the vicinity of the protagonist's house. The pace of the film is languid, and its tone is meditative. The script, though fiction, was written like a documentary, and we followed a documentary approach while filming, especially in the exteriors. It wasn't easy staging scenes at Manikarnika's bustling and melting cremation ghats. There was ash, fire, smoke, dead bodies, mourning relatives, and cattle. But I had to shoot at the real cremation grounds since my protagonist works there. The result was the most compelling mise-en-scene. I could feel the raw energy of the place even while watching rushes! Though the film is inherently realistic, the soundscape is exceptionally designed. I wanted people to get a feeling of a town crumbling or disintegrating when they hear the film. I wanted them to listen to those wings being cut. An intricate sound design coupled with an emotional, almost haunting soundtrack will make the viewer feel my protagonist's dilemma and experience a strange conundrum I felt while making the film!