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Photo: Anu Pushkarna

OPEN ENDED Shimit Amin: ’I was never ambitious to make a Hollywood or Bollywood film. I just wanted to make movies.’

He sounds young and childlike on the phone, has a thick American drawl and I just can’t place him as the man who directed Nana Patekar through Mumbai’s gullies and frosty encounters of “Ab Tak Chappan” or King Khan and a gang of girls through the myriad moves of “Chak De! India”. Yet, there he is, the young successful Turk of the year, a crucial milestone in the rapidly transforming Bollywood film industry.

Shimit Amin is the toast of the year – remember he gave us this year’s national sporting anthem “Chak De…”, made a big mark at the box office, won critical acclaim and was talked about as the next big thing from the Yash Raj Films stables. (He has a three-film contract with them.)

“Yeah… I don’t think we had calculated how the movie would come out, you know. Predicting it would have been foolish. It’s always surprising when a movie does well. You can’t take things for granted,” says the pragmatic 39-year-and-two-film-old Amin.

“Chak De opened my eyes in a way to what I am as a filmmaker; whether what I do is relatable to the audience… I always felt that what I did was a little outside that…,” he trails off. “To start with, the script was fantastic and I was able to take a journey with the film and see how audience accepted it. I was at that point living with the film.”

Shimit is one of those rare people in Bollywood who has made a reverse transition from Hollywood. He came down to Mumbai to edit Ram Gopal Verma’s “Bhoot”. He’s worked in every conceivable production department on a host of independent films in America for well over a decade, including as dialogue editor and in the sound department. Even now he continues to shuttle between Los Angeles and Mumbai.

But film itself is a universal enough medium to adapt to, across cultures, continents and industries, says Amin. “I think you can straddle both worlds… a lot of people can. It’s about understanding the culture and the film element. Sometimes you crossover, you just speak to an audience. There are always similarities. You wake up, work eight to 10 hours a day… everyone ultimately makes a movie passionately.”

But when the whole of Bollywood seems to make much hoohaa about landing a Hollywood project, how do you view the transition? “I guess it depends on what people think they want to do. Certain people have certain goals. I was never ambitious to make a Hollywood or Bollywood film. I just wanted to make movies.”

Talking of today’s Bollywood landscape, Amin says there are lots of different ways to make films and tell stories. “Today’s Bollywood is more free-er, and people are more aware of it. There’s more money than ever before; and more opportunities. Earlier too, films were being made on the fringes, like Shyam Benegal’s. But today the venues have expanded. You have multiplexes so you can have more movies.”

There are also that many chances that a movie can make or break over a weekend at a multiplex. And Amin says this is the time when a director can make a film like “Bheja Fry”. “It’s a mixed bag. It’s unpredictable. Things go backward and forward and you can’t see this phase in retrospect till five years later. It will take time to sum up this era.”

While Amin has been identified with a sense of drama in his story-telling, he says he also likes action and comedy. “It’s too early to sum up what I like. I would like to do action movies, comedies, romantic films… I’m only two films old.” But ask about his next to project with the Yash Raj house and mum’s the word. All he’ll let us in on is that he’s currently working on the scripts.

Comedy rules the roost in today’s Hindi cinema; never mind the quality. Amin diplomatically says that it’s because it’s tuned in to the people, or it wouldn’t work. “There is a demand, as long as audience are content. Comedies have a general appeal. I wouldn’t say it’s easy to make a comedy, but it’s easily promoted.”

(Shimit Amin is in the city tomorrow for the COMMITS seminar Flickers 2008 at Sathya Sai Auditorium near The Forum.)

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