Ishaan Ghose’s Jhilli to be released soon

Ishaan Ghosh’s Jhilli which won The Best Film Award for the International Competition on Innovation in Moving Images at the 27th Kolkata International Film Festival will be released on August 12. The film that has created a buzz after its first screening at the film festival is a debut project of Ishaan, who started working in the film in 2017. Filmmaker Goutam Ghose, Ishaan’s father, produced the independent venture.   

The film which features no prominent stars deals with the lives of people living at dhapa – Kolkata’s largest dumping yard. Jhilli, which means discard, shows the underbelly of the city focusing on the subaltern lives of Bokul and his friends. In an interview, Ishaan explained that he had no consolidated script when he started the film. The team improvised as they shot at the different corners in dhapa. Recalling the shooting days, Ishaan said that they used to go to dhapa every morning and till night they used to shoot. “We used to come to my home. Everybody used to take a shower and head home,” he said. After the shooting, Ishaan took it to the edit table to put things together. He has directed, edited and shot the film. 

Ishaan also said that it was because of his regular visit to Dhapa, that he got to know about their lives so well. In an interview with Calcutta Times, he said, “I used to hang out at Dhapa. When I thought of making a film, the place and the people there became a natural choice of subject.”