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FILM INTERVIEW: AMOLE GUPTE

Acclaimed Filmmaker Enhances Children’s Cinema Experience with ‘Stanley Ka Dabba’

By: Simran Mody

May 8, 2011

Amole Gupte on buzzinebollywood.com Children look forward to school on weekends like directors look forward to earning Worst Film honors at the Razzies, yet Bollywood filmmaker Amole Gupte turned a series of workshops for young students into a promising film in Fox Star’s Stanley Ka Dabba (which stars Divya Dutta, Divya Jagdale, Raj Zutshi, Aditya Lakhia, and Rahul Singh). As the film opens this weekend, the Taare Zameeen Par (“Like Stars On Earth”) director managed to put education at the forefront of one of his productions yet again, as Mr. Gupte discovered something magical in a series of weekend workshops on theater and cinema at his very own alma mater in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri.

“I didn’t plan a film at all. It started with a cinema and theatre session at Holy Family High School in Andheri -- the school I went to when I was a child,” Mr. Gupte told the press about the more than 18-month workshop series at the Andheri school of primary education. “The way I do cinema and theatre sessions at my Pali Chimbai Municipal School...I decided to do this in my school on Saturdays.”

What happened at those Saturday workshops was truly magical for Mr. Gupte, similar to the magic he brought to the big screen in Taare Zameen Par (which starred Aamir Khan and Darsheel Safary).

“This was one-and-a-half years of acting in cinema and theatre workshops in which the children got a sense of how to present themselves in front of the camera,” Mr. Gupte told the Indian press. “On Saturdays, for over one-and-a-half years and in vacation months for a week, I set the paradigm of being with the children. I stayed with them for four hours maximum, only on a holiday. Not a single child lost a day of school during the filming, and at the end of the workshop, we have a film in our hands. That’s Stanley Ka Dabba.”

In developing Stanley Ka Dabba, Mr. Gupte pointed out that he wanted to do two things: enhance children’s experiences in cinema while also educating them in the process.

“I shot in the workshop sessions. In today’s session, I shot two scenes, and again at another session, I shot another three scenes. Somewhere two-three days down the line, I thought it could be put in timeline and it can become a film,” Mr. Gupte told the press about the development of Stanley Ka Dabba. “Otherwise, it’s a workshop. It’s about educating the children.”

Yet, there is more to Stanley Ka Dabba than just the children. Mr. Gupte also pointed out that the film is also about relations with our friends and teachers.

“It’s about bonding, it’s about friendship, it’s about going back to your classroom and remembering your sweetheart teachers, your ‘khadoos’ (strict) teachers, your best friends, and the smell of the tiffin boxes when you open them in the recess,” Mr. Gupte candidly stated to the media. “It’s not a children film. It’s essentially with children but it’s a universal film. The definition of 'children film' in India is, unfortunately, something very dumb, something that is very accessible.”

Just the same, Mr. Gupte, who made every effort to highlight the film’s ballyhooed concert, was keen on ensuring Stanley Ka Dabba had a certain realness to it.

“I shot it very naturally with no big set-ups, with a digital camera. There was nothing that would make you feel that you are in a film set,” Mr. Gupte said, adding the production involved more than 170 students from Holy Family High School, and another 250 students who performed in the concert, in addition to 100 students coming in and out. “The children didn’t even know that a film was being made on their action. That’s why it’s such a precious film.”

Hopefully, Stanley Ka Dabba will be as heart-warming and successful as Taara Zameen Par ("Like Stars on Earth"), as the film hits movie screens across Bollywood and around the world on May 13th.