Arvind Kamath: I have a huge indifference to people who want to be actors for the wrong reasons

While the past year has seen a few Kannada films that have released on OTTs, probably none would have warranted repeat viewing or spawned as many discussions as director Arvind Kamath’s neo-noir mystery thriller, Arishadvarga. In an exclusive three-part interview with OTTplay, the engineer-turned-filmmaker talks about what attracted him to films, his first indie project and more.

You had worked as a software project manager in multinational companies for eight years before making the directorial plunge with Innuendo in 2011. So, what attracted you to films?

Films are a staple diet of Indian culture. I have always been into films since my childhood. Being in Bengaluru, which is a melting pot of different cultures, you get watch films of all languages. I was into Amitabh Bachchan’s films back then but when I was six or seven years old, my father introduced me to movies of Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan. Also, I had neighbours and friends who spoke Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. Since childhood, I always wanted to get into films, not as a filmmaker but as an actor and that too for all the wrong reasons – the glamour and the fame. 

After my Class 12, I wanted to join Film and Television Institute of Indian (FTII). But in those days, FTII wasn’t as big as it is now and I wasn’t encouraged at home. But my father did understand, which I found out recently. He passed away seven years ago; recently I got to know from my uncle that my father had run away from home to pursue a career in filmmaking. But he never told me or my mother about this. I knew he was into movies of Kamal Haasan, Anant Nag, Mohanlal and Sanjeev Kumar. So, (plunge into the creative side had to do with) a bit of DNA from my father.

So, my mother insisted that I get a degree and that’s why I ended up doing engineering. After that I pursued an acting career by being a print model; I didn’t have the height to be a ramp model. I also did some acting gigs in a few short films and ads. I dabbled with a whole of stuff since childhood. I used to write poetry and short stories, sketch; I was also a drummer and a professional dancer – but I left all of this midway. I passed out of college in 2003 and by 2005-06, I realised I wasn’t a good enough actor. So, when I gave up acting too, it hit my confidence. I felt like I wasn’t good at anything and I wanted to get away from my circle. 

There was a reality show called Zee Cinestar Ki Khoj in 2004. I was selected among the top 20 in Bengaluru. I called Vasundhara Das, who was a judge, a white rasgulla as part of an act and she immediately disqualified me because it was apparently offensive. So, all these things piled up and I left to North America as a consultant. I worked there for a couple of years and that’s where I found cinema because the (internet) bandwidth was really good. I got exposed to world cinema. I also took up photography and that’s when I learnt I loved storytelling and I wanted to get into cinema again – but this time as a filmmaker. 

I quit my job and returned to India. Fortunately, I was in demand in the job market and had a few offers in hand; my parents insisted that I continued doing my job rather than doing something stupid. I wasn’t too sure either because in the back of my mind, I was like, ‘What if I quit this too?’. But I continued learning cinema and trying my hand at short films while I took up an IT job from 2008-2010. And then I took the plunge. 

Listening to this, we see the character arc of Samyukta Hornad’s Sakshi in Arishadvarga in a new light. Sakshi gives up her dream of acting in films and settles for a married life at the end of the movie.

Even today, I see a whole lot of friends, who are not exactly actors but want to be popular faces. They go on auditioning for Yash Chopras and Karan Johars; being in Bengaluru, they don’t have the right diction and don’t work on it either. But they want to someday be part of a Shah Rukh Khan film, which I think is stupid because there are enough faces in Bollywood. Few strive to be actors. When I see them, maybe my previous guilt also creeps in and so, I have a huge indifference to such people. Maybe that’s why the character took shape. 

My initial interpretation was that giving up on her dream was the price she had to pay for going against the wishes of her parents.

It’s not just because of her parents. In the film, her parents weren’t rigid people who would lock her up. She was allowed to come late at night; she was questioned of course, because any concerned parent would. During the engagement scene, there’s a shot where she looks at the groom with acceptance, which means that she also wants this and finds this more lucrative than her acting career. In the end, she is again confused. So, her vice is closer to moha, which is always short-lived. 

Your first film Innuendo was made on a shoe-string budget. Tell us what led to it.

After I quit my job in 2011, I set up a post-production studio with my savings, so I could keep practising and earn my bread without butter. I had done a few short films by then and two of them made it to the top seven in national-level competitions. That gave me a lot of confidence that I can tell my own stories. I thought I couldn’t go to a film school because I couldn’t afford it, I couldn’t assist anyone as I was 30 by then, and so decided to make a film and learn through it. That’s how I made this ultra-low budget indie feature film called Innuendo. It was one among the first few feature films from Bengaluru. 

Social media, which wasn’t all that popular back then, was used for different aspects of promoting the film that had Sruthi Hariharan, Rishi and Kenneth Sebastian. How was that experience?

I got into social media in 2007 with Orkut. We didn’t know the length and breadth of social media then. Director Pawan Kumar was the one who showed us the power of social media. Right after Innuendo, he did Lucia and effectively used the platform. It was effective because the algorithms were more organic then but it worked only for a brand; Pawan was a noted name by then. 

Sruthi and Rishi became part of Innuendo through a friend’s Telugu film called Kya Yaaron. In it, I played the role of antagonist, Rishi had a supporting role and Sruthi had a cameo. Her scene was with me and during the shot and in between, we got talking; we found out that we were both dancers and knew each other’s troupes. I told her that I was planning to make a film and she was interested. Back then, it was about getting people who are interested on board rather than finding that perfect person. Kenneth Sebastian, who is a national comedian today, was a young boy who used to hang around with me and Bharath MC, who did the cinematography and music. Kenneth was an inquisitive kid who was innately talented. That’s how he got cast. 

Innuendo had a writer in a pivotal role and Arishadvarga revolved around a film editor. So, how much do you borrow from the life of people around you for your stories?

So far, it’s mostly from personal experiences. I identify myself with the writer in Innuendo because I was struggling with my craft for writing and I thought I wasn’t good enough. The story of the mother and son relationship in Innuendo wasn’t explored much in films back then. The son’s teenage years are a period of sexual awakening and the mother also has sexual needs that he doesn’t understand. When the son finds out that the mother has a companion, he becomes rebellious and does stupid things because that is a very vulnerable age. Although he is judgmental about his mother, he is hitting on his neighbour who is 10 years elder to him. So, it had these sexual connotations. 

The writer and his imagination again were part of the magic realism that was used. A lot of us creative people are not engaged throughout the year, we don’t have a 9-to-5 job or a steady income. The society looks at us as ‘not-so-useful’ people as long as we don’t really earn money. If we watch a couple of films as part of our work, people around us think that we are having a good time. But they don’t understand that it’s work for us, not entertainment. Similarly, when the writer husband and his wife is going through this in the movie, he gets so immersed that he can’t differentiate between what’s real and what’s story. It also shows the kind of abuse that happens in the name of creativity, in the form of the writer raping his imagination. 

The third story in Innuendo is based on what happened during my bachelor party. There was an uninvited guest who got drunk and created a ruckus. Then he went and hit an oncoming vehicle and was in coma, and we were sleeping in the hospital; so it’s an amalgamation of all these experiences. 

In the second segment of the three-part interview, Arvind breaks down the scenes and characters of Arishadvarga.