Veteran filmmaker, Bharat Bala, in a recently held video conference, released a new 4-minute film on his YouTube channel - Virtual Bharat. Titled 'Uthenge Hum' the film is a commemoration of the coronavirus lockdown in India and is a record of the collective human experience of the world’s most populous democracy - the story of 1.3 billion Indians.
Talking about the same, he said, "When the lockdown was announced, the first thought I had was to document this in a cinematic vision and that too pan India. It was a big vision and that's something my team and I always enjoy. The process itself was to film Indian in lockdown, and the challenge was nobody going out and everything was under law enforcement. Looking back, we reached out to people in the central and state government to seek response and permission. The first response came from Uttar Pradesh and it was good to see the government responding through WhatsApp. We had sanctions to film on-ground and we never accepted no for an answer."
The team had to go through extensive planning and sought permissions from different governments. The video was shot with 16 teams and sharing the thought on how the team was built, he added, "We were looking for people to join the vision and capture it with the same passion. The seamlessness is not about the number of crew members put together, but to deliver one film which is interesting, and made with the same passion. The master room set up a master room in Santacruz, who were evaluating 16 crews and 20 cinematographers. The team has a total of 117 people team which includes driver, cameraman, cinematographer and drone operator. Every officer we reached out to, saw this with a sense of honesty and they too realized that they were a part of India and its posterity. It was an unbelievable experience."
The film was conceptualised when the lockdown was announced by PM Narendra Modi and the process continued for 9 weeks. The vision of the team was to present a video which reflects an important journey to look back in time, which makes one imagine the unbelievable phase we have lived in the country, where every place was empty.
Concluding the conversation, by sharing his aim of making such videos, Bharat Bala said, "My heart has always been compelling to show the unique stories of India. There are amazing stories to be told. As a filmmaker, I enjoy as the subjects are interesting and the lenses love it. There are real people, real sound and we put it as a part of cinema. Through this idea, we have found people across India who love this subject. I'm sure, we will collaborate again in the future for many such projects."
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