Rohit says, “Shooting in the slums was China Mold Spring factory tricky.” Before the film could hit the floors, Rohit spent a month scripting it and then began to search for his protagonist Narayan Srivastav, the auto-rickshaw driver whose journey the film follows. Locals there think films are made elsewhere, so then why would someone enter their neighbourhood to make a film It was difficult to explain to them that that there are films made without Shah Rukh and Salman Khan. Location sound mixer Ravidev Singh says, “Guerrilla filmmaking is all about shooting in real locations. The actor says, “I was not aware of the mockumentary format initially.

People were surprised to see the actor directly talk to the camera and were wondering what kind of film was being shot,” he adds. A few dignitaries who were present at the NFDC screening really liked the film, Rohit says. The film has also been nominated for the International Federation of Films Critics award at the festival.” And the crew also needed to be discreet and quiet. I stayed with auto-rickshaw drivers in Kandivali, I studied how they ate, lived and also learnt to ride an auto-rickshaw. And that eventually paved the way to the HKIFF. To understand his character better, Deepak made the slums of Kandivali his temporary home.Deepak Sampat in a still from Autohead.

Shot in the suburbs of Mumbai within a span of just two weeks by a 12-member crew, the mockumentary revolves around a film crew following an auto-rickshaw driver through the city and then events take a turn for the worse. To be nominated is a big deal but I’m not expecting an award — that’d be too much for a first time nomination,” he says with a smile. Sometimes we would be hiding behind the trees to get the voice without any interference. Also I wanted to question the intent of the so-called social issue based filmmakers and question filmmaking in general. “I wanted to make a film that is more of a character study of a destructive mind in a repressive society. “I’m super excited as the film premieres there.” Autohead was screened at the NFDC Film Bazaar last year and garnered a lot of praise there. We had to be very particular about what we wanted, because it was difficult to keep out the ambience noise. “I got some money from my friends and family and finally found a producer in Amit Verma who heard the story and came on board. Being an independent filmmaker, gathering funds for the film was difficult.