'The Blue Helmet' Maker Mohanjeet Kalsi On The Short Film Scene In India

Mohanjeet Kalsi's short film “The Blue Helmet” has recently been selected as a semi-finalist in the Los Angeles CineFest 2018. The film revolves around road safety and picks up a slightly humorous tone to put words to an issue close to her heart. She is currently an assistant director who is also the mind behind several advertisement concepts. Her combined passion for writing and directing gained her debut short film international recognition and appreciation.

SheThePeople.Tv spoke to the scriptwriter and director about her work and achievements. Excerpts from the interview.

Your short film, The Blue Helmet, is about a very important issue which often doesn’t find space in mainstream productions. Do you think it is important for people to make movies on such issues?

I don’t know if it's important for people but this is something really close to my heart. I used to see these youngsters going on bikes without helmets and a lot of accidents happened on roads. The person sitting behind bears the brunt of it and gets more hurt than the person who is riding the vehicle. So the topic was there in my mind for a long, long time. That’s why I wanted to explore it and give it a very different treatment. I didn’t want to make it as a serious film as people don’t tend to pay much attention to it. I focused on making it a bit more comical.

Can you describe your experience as a woman writer and director in the industry?

My experience so far has been good but I still feel that there is a certain kind of bias against women filmmakers. We are not taken as seriously as our male counterparts. We aren’t paid equally either. So I think that is something we need to change as remuneration, respect and work should be based on your talents and not on your gender. There is still a lot of sexism in the industry.

Were there any challenges you faced while making this film? Did you ever imagine that you would receive such appreciation for your work from the creative community?

No, not at all. Actually I am an assistant director and I want to become a director. But for that, the first thing people ask you is about your production projects. They want to see your work. So I thought why don’t I just make a film on a topic which is really close to my heart? And I didn’t want to wait for a producer to get on board and give me the green signal. So I put in my own money. I became the producer; I was the chapraasi and the director on set. So I had to do everything from scratch.

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Do you think getting recognised at the international level would change this scenario at home?

Probably, yes. What happens in India is that when any project, a film or any work of art gets a stamp from abroad, people start taking it seriously. It is a sad truth about our country. Not just with my film, there are other short films that I have worked on which have done really well outside and then people have started taking notice here. That is why I didn’t give my film to Youtube or any Indian customer.

"Even I took the abroad route thinking that if my film is appreciated there, then probably people will start understanding and watching it here. Otherwise short films just get lost in India. There are so many of them which are made every year in the country, so it’s really easy to lose them among the rest. People might just not see them here at all"

Could you tell us something about how you come up with scripting ideas and concepts? 

I get asked this a lot since I write a lot of concepts for advertisements apart from films. So the thing is mujhe ideas chalte firte aate hai. I don’t actually sit and write an idea. I could be travelling or maybe just thinking about something and a sudden idea or thought would come up in my head. Even when I am working on a movie, some other concept comes to me at random. There are many ideas that revolve in my head but then there are these one or two of them which never leave my mind. So then I start making something out of those ideas. Similarly, the concept of 'The Blue Helmet' was stuck in my head for the longest time. I finally decided to make this and it worked!

Is there anything that you are working on right now? Any future projects?

Right now I am assisting on films since I am an Assistant Director. I am still doing that. I have also written two feature film scripts which I have started sending out to production houses. And let’s see as soon as the idea gets picked up by someone, I’ll probably direct a full feature film. That’s my goal.

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Nimisha Is An Intern With SheThePeople.TV