Rhode Island International Film Festival, Indie Spirit Film Festival, The Queen City Film Fest, WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, New Jersey Film Festival, Jaipur International Film Festival – and thus the endless list of both International and National awards continue!
Creating such a buzz even before it’s release, Ladies, and Gentlemen we have ‘India’s first Stoner Movie’; one of the most anticipated films of the year, M Cream is all set to hit the theaters on 22nd July.
At the press meet, when I asked the young talented writer/director Agneya Singh on how he feels about his film being promoted as a ‘stoner movie’, he confided that actually M Cream ‘is a lot more than a stoner film. But because of course it deals with the idea of M Cream which is a magical drug and it deals with these young people going on a road trip to find this drug, it does kind of fall very much within the stoner genre. And we were not tagging it as a “stoner film” initially. We took it to the International film festivals and lot of people started saying “Wow! India’s first stoner movie!” and so this term came along and somehow it’s a huge hit in here as well!’
And he laughs all excited and thrilled for his debut film’s release.
But then there were two other people whom I had the chance to talk with and they were by no means less exhilarated about the film – the brilliant actor duo Imaad Shah and Ira Dubey.
According to the soft-spoken Immad Shah ‘It was the character that he (Agneya) asked me to play and which I found really interesting and I got tempted to do the film. I think all actors love to be a Character with a graph, with some kind of a journey, personal journey as well as in this case it was also a physical journey, the road trip, the travel. It was fantastic and visually very beautiful.’
M Cream was made almost two years back and on the process of its delayed release Imaad Shah comments ‘This being an independent film, in a way it was an underdog you know, up against the big stars, Salmans and all those kind of films. It is an underdog independent film, which perhaps may take a little longer to release but every film has his own journey and in a way it was a blessing in disguise. The buzz is really built up. So for the last two years literally everywhere I go people are just like “when can we see it” and now there is a release date and finally I have an answer to tell them. All this while, I have just been like “some time”, “some time soon”, now it’s like official.’
And then the female lead of the film, the very gifted actor Ira Dubey explains why she chose this film and what she loves about her character Jay ‘It is not a dramatic film. I must say this very clearly, Is Mein Melodrama Bilkul Bhi Nahi Hai. We are telling a story that is a slice of life.’
And about her character Jay Ira confidently says ‘Jay is a typical sort of Delhi girl, she is Bengali. But I didn’t want to give her an accent, I didn’t want to give her a jhola, I didn’t want to make her a caricature or a stereotype. She speaks like you and me, she lives in Delhi, she is an urban girl – she doesn’t do drugs but she drinks her whiskey. She has got a very idealistic way of looking at life and of course, the crux of the story is the conflict between her and Figs (Imaad’s character).’
And finally, when asked about the experience of the shooting days Imaad had a smile on his face ‘We were two months away in Himachal, so it was very important that everyone gets along & thankfully we got along from day one. We used to meet every night, after the shoot for dinner, drinks whatever.We had the guitars lying around, we used to play, sang throughout the night. There was trout in Himachal Pradesh, we used to eat trout every day! And it kind of became a really strong family unit by the end of it. ’
As to end the conversation the director Agneya insisted that ‘The film is not only for stoners or only for young people, though it does examine to be a young person in India today but it also captures very poetically what it means to be at that moment of your life when you are very idealistic yet cynical. And lot of older people who have also seen the film, who are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, it really resonated with them as well’
By: Souranath Banerjee
