“As a director, you have to have a lot of PR…” Santosh Sivan, who became the first Asian to receive the Pierre Angénieux ExcelLens in Cinematography award at Cannes, talked to Brut about the difference between cinematography and direction. Brut is the official media partner for Cannes Film Festival 2024. #Cannes2024
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00It taught me belief has to be stronger than a desire just to succeed commercially.
00:05Hi, I'm Sandoor Sivan for Brute.
00:24Actually, it came as a surprise for me and of course I feel delighted
00:28because of the kind of messages I've been getting.
00:31Also from actors who I've worked with like Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan
00:37and directors like Shekhar Kapoor, Mani Ratnam, Meera Nair, Gurinder Chadda.
00:42I'm not surprised that he's getting this most coveted honour,
00:47the Pierre Angenieur Tribute and Canne this year, 2024.
00:51There's no one more deserving than Sandoor Sivan.
00:54So congratulations, Sandoor, and wishing you all the very best.
00:57If I may request you, please do have a beer after you get the award.
01:28So that time I thought, how can I leave family and everything and switch there?
01:34Because they always want to have meetings before you shoot films and things like that.
01:40So all the people who get ASE normally shift there.
01:45But I didn't want to leave India like that because I have my own thing here.
01:58I remember I was in Sundance.
02:02There was a lot of interest because I was the only Indian there.
02:05Then I met this director of Dancer in the Dark, Vasant Rai.
02:10And he came and shook my hand saying,
02:12I was so inspired by your song Chaiya Chaiya that I have a sequence like that in my film.
02:21Cinematography is very zen-like.
02:24You relate to nature.
02:25You have a good relationship with actors, everyone.
02:29And then you cut off at the end of the shoot, day of shoot.
02:34As a director, you have to have a lot of PR, meet people, meet financiers.
02:39It is a lot of meeting people to get something going.
02:49I think all industries have different, different way of working.
02:52The Malayalam industry, you have to be very quick because the budgets are low.
02:57The Tamil industry has a certain sensibility.
03:00Bollywood has a certain sensibility.
03:03The South, I would say, is more disciplined in terms of time.
03:08In Bombay, you can always blame the traffic for coming late.
03:11The most correct way of doing it is the British or the American system where everything is proper.
03:20That is also there because most of their shooting is sync shooting.
03:24In Indian films, we tend to be more organic.
03:28Western films, don't let you be that organic.
03:32You have to do what is in the script.
03:35Because there might be multiple producers and they all have signed something on it.
03:41So whatever is there, you have to do.