Aspiring independent filmmaker Raffael Ahsan tells Imtiaz Salim the various types of obstacles he went through to release his first comedy film ‘Noy Chhoy’ in the big screen last week
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Having a dream and seeing it come true is the ultimate accomplishment for a person. Raffael Ahsan, 30, an aspiring independent filmmaker, is one among them who did not compromise on his wish to complete his film despite all the obstacles and challenges that took him four years to see his film finally hit the theatres.
Among the obstacles included the difficulties such as managing the financial support, a complication with choosing the title, and the misfortunes of losing footages and reshooting. ‘When I started making the film, my team comprised of 25 people,’ says Raffael, adding that by the time it completed there was just him from the original team.
Raffael’s film ‘Noy Chhoy’ hit the three major theatres including Blockbuster and Star Cineplex on December 18.
Although Noy Chhoy is a comedy film, Raffael wishes to coin the genre of his movie as ‘magic realism’. ‘I call it magic realism because my story tries to show how despite the means to live an easier life, people complicate their lives by chasing the typical social functions of maintaining a job, family and the society. I have tried to represent the fight between the need and the necessity in a very comic way in my film,’ Raffael tells New Age Youth.
An offspring of an artiste family, Raffael grew up amid the practice of music. His mother and aunts being singers in different capacities, Raffael was exposed to tabla from a very early age.
As he grew up, he discovered within himself an innate skill at telling stories. ‘I think telling stories is the basic of filmmaking,’ Raffael adds and watching movies regularly helped him realise this more.
His exposure to filmmaking began with an eight millimeter tiny projector and three films that his maternal uncle bought from Germany. Each film contained five minutes. ‘Those 5-minute films influenced me to play with images,’ Raffael reminisces.
Raffael started his career as a photographer when he was a higher secondary school student. ‘I had an SLR camera and with that I used to do wedding photography back in 2004,’ Raffael says.
After completing his higher secondary education he did some courses on scriptwriting and camera operating. Raffael made his first film in 2006 when he was a first year university student. The movie titled ‘Poth Chola’ was a teen film which revolved around lives of four university students, their friendship and relationships.
Although Raffael approached the censor board for an approval to release in the theatres, it did not see the light of the day because digital film law was still not in place at the time and his movie was in digital format.
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Eventually, he resorted to screening the film in different universities across the country for Tk 30 tickets and ‘it had an impressive response,’ says Raffael.
Raffael completed his undergrad in Mass Communication from University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. After his bachelors he got involved with the movement of the film activists community which has been working to establish digital cinema in Bangladesh.
In 2008, he was the student of the second batch of a diploma course on filmmaking conducted by Bangladesh Film Archive.
In 2011 Raffael started shooting for his first feature film ‘Noy Chhoy’. Although he finished the film in 2012, legal complications pertaining to the title of the film as well as approval from the censor board took away the last three years
As an independent filmmaker Raffael says, understanding audience is important ‘if you want the movie to be successful.’ Since independent filmmakers do not always get enough sponsors to produce film, most of the time they take risks while producing a film. In the process, even if their ideas are large, they have to cut down on budget to tailor a movie within their capacity.
Raffael suggests aspirant filmmakers to look after the content of their films so that the audience can relate themselves with the story. ‘Content is essential for every filmmaker. The content should be communicative,’ he says.
Raffael aspires to make his next movie multilingual and tells New Age Youth that, ‘film is not a national product rather it is an international product. If you can make people understand your story, that is your achievement,’ he concludes.