Noted teleplay director Diponkar Dipon has recently returned after gathering a year long experience in the Bollywood industry where he worked under Anurag Kashyap, renowned Indian film director.
Dipon will begin his endeavours as a film director and for that he went to Bollywood to work under Anurag Kashyap as part of his preparation. Dipon worked with Kashyap at different levels of production and postproduction of Gangs of Wassiypur and Ugly.
He spoke about the differences he observes between Dhallywood and Bollywood. ‘The film activists of Bollywood are aware about what is happening in the global market and they are trying their best to adapt themselves in a way so that they can sell their films globally,’ stated Dipon in an interview with New Age.
Dipon also informed that the total system of filmmaking in Bollywood is different from that of Dhallywood. ‘The director only sees the creative side of the film and nothing else while the financer finances the film and the producers engage in overall planning. There are separate teams for casting, make-up and other segments while in Dhallywood, the director himself does direction, casting and undertakes several other responsibilities that actually shift his creative focus,’ Dipon said.
Dipon feels that making a good film in Bangladesh is indeed a daunting task. ‘The first challenge is related to the production period as it is really difficult to find skilled technicians in the country,’ shared Dipon.
But the bigger challenge emerges in the post production period as the total process of film distribution in the country is defective. ‘Our distribution system works in such a way that it discourages films with good standards from doing business. For example, Chorabali could not do good business because our system is so accustomed by our conventional films that it dejects something refreshing and atypical,’ observed Dipon. ‘There are only 5/6 cinema halls where people go to watch films with family. A country’s film industry can’t depend on such meager number of halls,’ Dipon said.
Dipaon came to Dhaka from Dinajpur in 1993 with a goal to become a film maker. ‘I always intended to be a director but after coming to Dhaka I went to FDC and different private organisations but nowhere I found the support I was seeking for films. So I changed my goal and began to study theatre at Jahangirnagar University. However, theatre is not worthy in terms of financial gains so I started making teleplays,’ revealed Dipon, who has made about 100 single episode teleplays and about 500 episodes of drama series.
-With New Age input