Even before she had written a word of her first book, filmmaker and actor Nandita Das knew what she wanted to call it: Manto & I. In t...
Even before she had written a word of her first book, filmmaker and actor Nandita Das knew what she wanted to call it: Manto & I. In the recently published coffee table book, Das takes readers behind the scenes of her second film Manto (2018), documenting a six-year journey that she spent crafting a portrait of writer and playwright Saadat Hasan Manto and his times.
Manto’s relevance has only increased since Das began working on the film, she writes in the introduction to the book, and the kind of censorship he faced is uncannily similar to curbs in the present sociopolitical climate. In Manto & I, interspersed with lush photographs are Das’s memories of and reflections on the long years of research, the writing process, the challenging search for locations, the casting, shooting and the business of “selling” the film, while taking what she calls “Mantoiyat” – the spirit of Manto – beyond the big screen.
A day after the 65th anniversary of Manto’s death, Das spoke to Scroll.in about why she decided to turn the making of Manto into a book, before going up on stage for a lively session at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode. Excerpts from the interview:
Why did you want to write Manto & I?
When I...
