In light of recent misleading headlines and misinterpretations of his remarks, Producer Devashish Makhija releases a clarifying statement to rectify misconceptions and provide accurate information.
Producer Devashish Makhija has cleared the air after several misleading headlines surfaced online that he has been bankrupted and going through a financial crisis. In a detailed Facebook post, Makhija stressed the intricacy of discussions concerning artistic challenges within the film industry. He emphasized the risks associated with oversimplifying and misinterpreting nuanced conversations, particularly when they are condensed into short headlines or snippets.
Taking to Facebook, Makhija began his post by telling about an unfiltered 2-hour-long interview with The Small Man Show). The producer wrote, “In it, we spoke in meandering detail about the difficulties of the artistic cinema fight. We covered ground worth roughly 20 years of my lived experience. If I ever have difficult, open-hearted conversations they are long-winded ones where we can lay bare the Macro issues at hand, and not get blindsided by the Micro. I did the same in a conversation with Vaibhav Munjal (Chalchitra Talks) last year.
I am very wary of the quick-fire conversations. Often the main impatient thrust of these conversations is to arrive quickly at a clickbait headline. The interviewer nudges/provokes/manipulates the conversation into a place where some words tumble out of our mouths in a sequence that is provocative. These conversations achieve nothing except the momentary titillation for the reader with an attention deficit and a dangerous misreading of the fragile topic at hand. I turn down all offers of such interviews and requests for quick quotes.”
Devashish Makhija Speaks About the Artistic Cinema
Explaining how words have been misinterpreted, Devashsihs said, “The artistic cinema extracts its pound of flesh from everyone who seeks to pursue it doggedly. Sathyu, Ghatak, Shahani – hell Ceylan too – will all corroborate. My films (the ones that emerged into the world, and even the dozen-and-a-half that didn’t, plus my shorts) have all been difficult births. To be fair, no one said it would be easy. And I try not to complain much about it either (before you troll me, the emphasis here is on the word ‘try’). Although sometimes, in safe spaces, I say things for what they are, without any sugar coating. But when I do this, I do it in detail, laying out the entire complex fabric on the table. I try not to talk in Micro’s, but in the hard-to-deconstruct Macro’s.”
“For example, I have spoken often of the inability of my films to translate all their critical acclaim to box office numbers. This is a challenge faced by all those who have pursued artistic prerogatives over commercial ones, since time immemorial. But when I speak of this I lay it out with all its many parameters and perspectives, using many many words to make explicit the underlying context. So that the interconnectedness and linkages of things emerge. To make sweeping over-simplifications on such matters is fraught with danger – the danger of giving a false impression. Which someone did yesterday,” the producer added.
In the Facebook post, the producer explained how his 3-to 4 brief key phrases said to him during the interview turned out to be the headlines for the next day. He also said that after this fiasco, he is now extremely nervous and will think twice before putting his word out there.
Devashish Post Concluded With a ‘Please’
Concluding the post, the producer asked the newsmakers to not cut down the 2-hour long interview to 2 minutes and only pick the spotlight word. Makhija in his Facebook post wrote, ”
Please remember that when you do this – compress the expansive from a 2-hour ‘listen’ down to a 1-minute ‘read’ – you inadvertently scald some well-meaning people. You make some trusting people mistrustful. You make partially open doors slam shut, perhaps forever. You permanently blur what was previously in sharp focus. You turn an artistic film that requires patient, involved engagement – into a bloody gladiatorial game. Don’t do it. Please.”
