I am an artist-filmmaker, says director, painter Indrajit Nattoji

I can safely say that Aafta-e-Ishq is now an adaption of Liza and not a remake. It has been rebooted with some new twists, great original music, and quirky small town Indian characters.

Aagey Se Right was my debut film made with a lot of heart. I learnt a lot from the experience and am lucky to have a theatrical release in my career! But it also made me want to hone my film making skills further. So I went back to making ad-films with my production house Blink Pictures, and to writing stories and scripts. I feel that with the advent of OTT platforms and all encompassing social media, the Indian entertainment audience has evolved and matured in a significant manner. There are now much more opportunities for directors like me to tell eclectic stories with wider and more diverse subjects. Yes, at last content is indeed king. I guess everything has a time and I am glad I waited it out.

I have been drawing and painting from the time I recall my earliest childhood memories. It was a natural instinct, as basic as eating and breathing. I always wanted to be an artist and painter until the time I got into the National Institute of Design. There I discovered and trained in so many mediums- from drawing, graphic design, and animation, to film-making. All this before the digital renaissance, which meant no computers and social media. Despite having dabbled with such a wide range of mediums I remain old fashioned and continue drawing and painting on canvas and my sketchbooks, which is as indispensable as my mobile phone. Alongside my film scripts and ad-films I have continued my practice as an artist. My art has been exhibited at the galleries of All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society, New Delhi, and more recently at the Prince of Wales of Wales Museum, Mumbai. As a solo artist, I presented a unique collection at the ICCR, Kolkata. Titled “Tagore in Shorthand”, the exhibition was an artist’s tribute to the literary works of Rabindranath Tagore. I have also conceived and produced large scale film installations for Indian Music Experience, India’s first permanent experiential museum of Indian music in Bangalore. More recently I have created a hand painted music video for Kavita Seth’s Rangi Saari.

I love my art and I love life. Cinema connects the two. And I have so many stories to tell. The beauty of film-making is that I can indulge in all the art forms- from writing to drawing to music and to life itself. So, I guess I will always want to be an ‘artist film-maker’.

Neha Sharma was a revelation. She is very different from her social media persona. Lallo the protagonist of Aaft-e-Ishq is diametrically opposite to what Neha is in real life. We did extensive workshops and worked a lot on Neha’s Hindi diction for a local dialect, character quirks, and costume for her transformation to Lallo. Neha is a dedicated and intelligent actor and transformed completely into the quirky character of my protagonist, Lallo.

We shot in extremely challenging times, at the height of the pandemic. However, the shoot was all possible because my cast believed in the film and was completely dedicated. Deepak Dobriyal, Amit Sial, and Namit Das are veteran actors who were my first and only choice for the characters of Vikram, Prem Gunjan, and Atmaram respectively. When all of them came together, the set was one big happy family with constant laughter, fulfilling conversations, and incredible performances. Ila Arunji is a force of nature. Even at her age and at the time of a pandemic, she brought into the set a certain fearless and inspiring energy. I learned a lot from her. I feel extremely fortunate to work with such a stellar cast and crew put together by Zee Studios. I hope the film catches the audience’s imagination and succeeds in entertaining them, something we all need as we slowly emerge from a devastating 2020.

I have an ambitious web series in development and two ready film scripts for which I am in talks with producers. Also, I am visualising and creating VFX for a film which will be released soon on a leading OTT platform. Meanwhile I am working on my next art collection- a series of portraits of the pandemic.