How India-Set Nepal-Shot ‘The Shameless’ Transitioned From Documentary to Adult Animation to Cannes Un Certain Regard Fiction Feature
18.05.2024 - 07:39
/ variety.com
Naman Ramachandran Bulgarian-American filmmaker Konstantin Bojanov‘s Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard selection “The Shameless” has taken 14 years to come to fruition. Bojanov previously directed the documentary “Invisible” (2005), followed by his Cannes-debuting fiction feature debut “Avé” (2011).
Post “Avé” and prior to his 2017 Rotterdam selection “Light Thereafter,” which starred Barry Keoghan and Kim Bodnia, Bojanov acquired the rights to William Dalrymple’s 2009 book, “Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India.” The idea at the time was to make a documentary cross referencing four different stories from the book, including one of a sex worker in Karnataka, southern India. Bojanov scoured India to find real stories similar to the ones in the book and in 2014 he started filming in Karnataka, with a view to using the footage to attract finance for a feature-length documentary.
During his research, the filmmaker also came across a young girl growing up in a family of sex workers and another woman from the profession who was “extremely hardened and driven and soft at the same time,” Bojanov said. “It gave me the idea of a love story between two women in similar circumstances.” “I quickly abandoned the idea of a documentary.
It was a daunting project – not that ‘The Shameless’ didn’t turn into a similar ordeal – to direct the documentary, or three documentaries, in three languages that I didn’t speak, relying on different interpreters and everyone having their own agenda as well,” Bojanov added. “It was nearly impossible unless I moved to India, lived there and learned some of the languages.” In “The Shameless,” protagonist Renuka escapes from a Delhi brothel after killing a policeman, seeks refuge in a
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