Sudhir Mishra: Films are judged like political essays

MUMBAI: Filmmaker Sudhir Mishra feels films these days are judged like political essays, with no regard to the craft of storytelling.

“There is a lack of political understanding yet everything is about politics . Effing weird . Films are judged like political essays . Cinema has no place . Craft has no place . Kya ho rela hai? (What is happening?),” Mishra tweeted on Friday.

“Cinema is, plucking an idea out of the air, about apparently nothing but then it becomes about so much more . About your life and mine . About your world and mine,” he added.

Mishra entered Bollywood as a director with “Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin” in 1987. He added strokes of diverse stories on the cinematic canvas, with “Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi”, “Chameli”, “Inkaar”, “Khoya Khoya Chand”, and “Calcutta Mail”, over the years, besides the OTT-released film “Serious Men” and the web series “Hostages”.

His most recent project “Serious Men” was an adaptation of Manu Joseph’s book of the same name. The film featured Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and narrated the story of a father who wants to create a bright future for his son.

Meanwhile, the filmmaker had shared that the pandemic has left an everlasting impact on his life.

“I don’t know this whole experience of the pandemic. I’ve lost a bit of my swag. When I saw myself terrified, holding my father in my arms and running towards an ICU, and then watching him die, that has done something. I don’t know what exactly. It will show in my next (project),” he told IANS in an interview in the past.