Man behind the reel life-Navtej Sandhu

Navtej Sandhu

With two short films based on real life stories under his belt, director Navtej Sandhu is willing to make a full fledge feature film on a social issue. He shares his love for serious cinema with me and I am glad to contribute my bit towards parallel cinema!

Here is our one on one conversation!

Your background
I am based in holy city Amritsar and did my graduation from here itself. I’m the youngest in the family of four brother-sisters. I love travelling and photography. Making films is my passion and highlighting social issues is the genre I love.

Your Launch pad
As a director, my launch pad is a short film titled ‘NOORA’ in 2013

Do you prefer making short films only?
I enjoy making short films because it is more challenging as to raise an issue in just 30-35 mins, rather than a feature film length. Secondly, for the kind of my dream cinema is, it’s very hard to find a producer for a feature film of big budget. In my opinion, short films can be and ae more effective due to its short and crispy length as well as screenplay

What is the reason behind taking up social issues related to women?
A female is the backbone of any society, as a mother-sister-wife or any other relation. In our Punjabi literature also, women plays a significant role. There are a number of issues in our society that are related to women and needs to be raised. Women based issues gets immediate attention in our society and gets noticed

Tell us something about your latest short flick named 'Kambdi Deorri’
This story is based on a true incident happened around 1960s. The story is based on the deteriorating values of family relations. Story is written by the living legend of Punjabi literature S. Jaswant Singh Kanwal. We shot entire film in 6 days around Amritsar. Sardar Sohi, Jaspinder Cheema, Mohit Bhaskar, Jaswant Jass, Dilraj Udey, Sukhbir Sandhu, Gurbinder Bhatti, Sukhdev Barnala played the important roles.

What is the reason behind taking actor 'Sardar Sohi' in both of your short films?
He is one of the finest-greatest actors of Punjabi Cinema. When I was writing the character of "Fauji Najar Singh" of NOORAN & then "Inspector Dilawar Singh" of KD, it was only Sardar Sohi who immediately clicked my mind because I knew that only he can do full justice with these characters. Apart from this, he is a very nice human being also

Your take on present state of Pollywood industry
Not a very favourable time for Punjabi cinema right now, except of just 3-4 films released this year. Most of the big production houses are now refusing to produce ay Punjabi film. Audience too wants a change. We need really meaningful Punjabi films now. There shall be a break from rom-com type films. It’s not the golden period of cinema.

Have you ever thought of highlighting solutions of the issues you raise?
Yes, I did this in my both movies

What is the response of 'screening' worldwide?
More than expected! Feeling proud that with NOORAN & KAMBDI DEORRI, we have set a trend of the screenings of Punjabi Short Films worldwide which was never did before.

Any plans for full-fledged flick?
Yes, of course I will go for commercial feature films in future also but content will be of my choice i.e. Meaningful Cinema. I will make Punjabi literature based story film.

Message for the Youth
Support meaningful films. Stop supporting Piracy

Note: The interview was originally published in The Times of India supplement, Jalandhar Times.