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The Rediff Interview/ David Hamilton

'How can anyone come back to shoot again in India?'

David Hamilton is the producer for Deepa Mehta's Water. He spoke to rediff.com's Suparn Verma in Varanasi.

When do you begin shooting again?

We can only begin shooting if they give us permission. We require their permission -- I mean they gave us permission that's why we are here. We went through every government regulation, we followed every procedure they had established. We got their full approval, the ministry of information and broadcasting looked at the entire script and approved it. In fact, we signed a contract with the I&B ministry. They put down a number of conditions in that contract, we fulfilled those conditions. They were like -- we have to accept a liason officer on the site who will ensure we film the script. We then went to the local government and received all the approvals from them, everything is in writing.

Now people who don't have any official status are objecting to what we are doing, they are lying in the papers, they haven't even seen the script so they are making up stories. Then the government buckles under that pressure ... that puts us in a very difficult situation where we have done everything according to the law and they are stopping us from doing so. But those people who are lawless are not being stopped but we are.

Has the problem occurred because local hands have not been greased?

(Laughs) I don't know, because we certainly haven't paid anyone, so you will have to ask them and they certainly won't say 'Yes'. But what I can tell you is that we had some initial meetings with some local people who I won't name, who indicated that they were going to help us make sure everything was smooth and give us every support.

During those meetings there were some suggestions that they would like to have the distribution rights to the film in UP. We said this is not the time to talk about this and the trouble started after that. Whether that is a coincidence I don't know.

Now the nod has to be given at the state level?

How do we know? We have done everything we are supposed to do, and now we are in no man's land where the district magistrate (Alok Kumar) referred the issue to the state government and has made a recommendation to them. We don't know what that recommendation is, but we have been told informally that he doesn't feel very positive about us proceeding because of the law and order issue.

Now the state government is supposed to get back to us, but now they have referred it back to the I&B ministry. So what do we do? I mean what this suggests to anybody coming from outside to make a film in India is that even if you get all the necessary approvals it is not necessarily an approval.

I am saying that from the point of view of a film-maker, who would take that risk? If somebody told me that even if you did everything right, you still could be stopped from shooting, I wouldn't risk that kind of money. We've already invested two-and-half crores in this film. We'll lose that completely if we don't shoot this film here. (The film was supposed to be shot start to finish in Varanasi, the schedule starting January 30 and ending in early March).

How much are you spending by staying back every day?

Roughly, about Rs 10 lakhs to Rs 15 lakhs a day.

Does the film insurance cover this?

No, the insurance is about other things, like actors getting sick or something like that. I don't even know how would you even define this? What would you call it? ... Mob... mob control? I don't think you have any insurance policies for mob control.

How much damage was done to the sets?

I haven't seen them because they told us not to go near our sets, so I haven't seen the exact damage. The sets are lying in the same state as before, we have not brought anything back.

What exactly was constructed?

There wasn't a great deal of construction down in the ghats. We have other locations and they have apparently damaged a number of them, but until we do a survey we won't know. That is not the principle issue, the main issue is that we now have been here for six weeks. We have crew members from all over the world, many from India and 110 people sitting here not doing anything. That's the issue.

So is there a cut-off date for waiting here?

What are we gonna do? Sit here for six weeks and then go home? Then we'll have spent everything and still not have a film? At the same stage we have to say that this is not going to happen. At the moment we are still hopeful that someone will see reason. That the government will stand up for the contract they had signed with us, will follow the procedure and law and support people who are law abiding.

They have have made a commitment to us. They have made us spend two-and-half crore rupees on their authority and now are saying they are nervous about some people who are not obeying the law instead of protecting us who have done everything they have asked us to do. They are allowing these people to blackmail us.

After this film will you ever come back to shoot again in India?

How can I? How can anyone? Nobody can take that kind of risk unless you are a multi billionaire who doesn't care and can sit here for a year and wait for everyone to agree to let you do it. So this is your last film here?

Absolutely.

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