There is an indisputable quirk present in the characters of a Shoojit Sircar film. Whether it is the eccentric old man suffering from constipation in Piku (2016); the Punjabi youngster who turns into a sperm donor in Vicky Donor (2012) or the clumsy protagonist of his 2018 film, October, who becomes an awkward caregiver to his bed-ridden co-worker. There is an ordinariness to these stories which gets elevated with the presence of these quirky characters and their evolving plot points. It is what makes his stories feel ‘slice-of-life’. The director tends to break that reading when he makes outwardly political and topical films like Yahaan (2005), Madras Café (2013) and Sardar Udham (2021). For him, all of his stories come from a deeper place of translating something which he experienced. “Some moments stay with you and images keep forming in your head. Eventually, it comes out in different forms. Some people write, some talk, some make plays. I make films,” he says.

That’s how his films come to fruition, he adds. When he visited Jallianwala Bagh, it had a ‘chilling effect’ on him that stayed with him for years until it took the shape of a film. Shoojit says that even he doesn’t know when and how an idea begins to form in his head. “I never imagined that I would end up being a filmmaker. So, all the stories are just coming to me and I am just making them. I don’t think much about ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’,” he says. His last film, I Want to Talk (2024) again told an unusual story of a chirpy man who gets diagnosed with cancer and goes through multiple surgeries with his affectionate grumpiness. Unlike his other films though, I Want to Talk opened to a mixed response from audience and turned out to be a major failure at the box office. “When there is a box office disaster, it definitely affects you. I was shocked when the film didn’t do well,” he says, adding that for him, I Want to Talk was a ‘satirical’ and ‘hilarious’ film about a man who wants to survive. But when he saw the audiences’ reception, he realised that they were not ready to watch a film about a cancer survivor. “Maybe that’s not the state of mind they wanted to be in,” he says. The film, however, got some critical acclaim with unanimous praise for Abhishek Bachchan’s performance. What is the director’s relationship with film criticism then? “I look at some of it and learn from it. But I don’t take every review or criticism seriously. Apart from critics, I also like to listen to what the audience is saying about the film at large,” he responds.

It was his time to be on the other side as he was part of the jury for the short film competition at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) this year. He describes the experience of watching films by young filmmakers as ‘fascinating’. “There were films made by filmmakers from India and Australia. And somewhere, they were addressing similar social issues through their stories but with a different cast and milieu,” Shoojit says, adding that it was his second year being part of the jury at the festival. “Coming to IFFM is like going on a picnic. There is a lot of celebration of cinema with discussions and film screenings that makes the experience quite worthwhile,” he says. The director will also be making a short film as part of the second instalment of the anthology, My Melbourne along with Rajkumar Hirani, Anjali Menon and Onir. He says that they are still discussing ideas for it. “It is going to be about the cross-culture relations between India and Australia,” he says.  

The festival also honoured Guru Dutt on his centenary this year with special tribute screenings of his films, Pyaasa (1957) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959). Shoojit remembers being impacted by his films when he watched them for the first time. For him, Guru Dutt’s films are similar to the Bengali films of Ritwik Ghatak. “There is a similarity in how both of them looked at their life. Both of them had a problem with alcohol and there was a lot of personal trauma which was reflected in their films,” says Shoojit. “When you reach that stage as an intellectual, the way you start seeing society starts to bother you. So, in a way, both of them dedicated themselves to their films. There is still a lot to learn from them,” he adds. Shoojit says that every time he re-watches Pyaasa, he connects with it in a deeper way and it makes him wonder, as he concludes, “Why are we not making films like this anymore? Why are we not learning from Guru Dutt and taking his legacy forward?”