Chandigarh, March 27 (IANS): A theatre artiste and content specialist, Anmol Sidhu has revealed he has watched filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s videos to shoot his Punjabi feature film ‘Jaggi’.

Presented at the ‘India Unveiled’ section of the Cinevesture International Film Festival (CIFF), ‘Jaggi’ is a 117-minute film directed, written and edited by Anmol.

The film's lead actor is Ramnish Chaudhary, who plays Jagdeep Singh aka Jaggi. It also features Harmandeep Singh, Gaurav Kumar, Shivam Kamboj and Aks Mehra in pivotal roles.

The movie addresses issues like discrimination, sexual abuse, and mental health.

Talking to IANS, Anmol talked about the procedure he followed for shooting this movie.

He said: “I watched Anurag Kashyap sir’s videos. He has said in the videos that we can make films with the help of a phone, a film can be made from the left out reels. So, I purchased a camera, I didn’t know how to handle it, so I roped in a wedding photographer from my village. He taught us how to use the cameras, he has shot some of the film.”

Anmol, who comes from Kauloke in Bathinda, Punjab, said the entire shooting has been done in his village only.

The young filmmaker went on to say, “Like I took the camera, watched videos on YouTube and figured out how to operate the camera, and then we made the film. The same way other filmmakers are also doing. They are making films on their phones. You can get a camera within one lakh and it becomes easy to shoot a short film. And I think one should make short films to make a feature film.”

If he faced any financial challenges while making this movie, Anmol, who is also known for his short film ‘The Last Tree’ said: “I made ‘Jaggi’ through crowdfunding, and more of a relationship funding. My friends have given me money to make this film. For me money is not a problem to make a film.”

Anmol said shooting in a village on such a topic was very challenging. “We had one person in the crew, so villagers used to gather and think that something was happening," he recalled.

"There is a scene in the movie in which a girl is roaming around in the fields. What we see in the movies, in reality, is very tough. It’s impossible to see a girl running in the fields in real life, that we usually watch on the screens,” Anmol said.

He added: “When I had to bring my heroine to the fields in the movie, I took extra care, so that there is no controversy in the village. Since, it was a year for us shooting for the film, so the villagers had some understanding that we are doing something. But, I didn’t tell the villagers on which topic I am making the film.”

‘Jaggi’ revolves around a schoolboy from rural Punjab who encounters impotence and is mistaken to be homosexual.

Reflecting upon the issue being addressed in the film, and its acceptance in society, Anmol said: “This is a very common story about village people which sounds very rare. But it’s not, it's very common stuff. The movie is accepted, because it has been screened in various film festivals, and people are watching it.”

He added: “People message me as they want to see it. They want films to be made on such topics, because in Punjab only comedy films are made. So anything that is made apart from comedy will work. So according to me people want to see more films like ‘Jaggi’,” he said.

Talking about the casting, Anmol said that the lead actor Ramnish was his junior in the theatre.

“In the film there are two versions of Jaggi -- the younger one and the older. To achieve that we took a break of six months. First we shot his childhood, then Ramnish lost weight and played the elder Jaggi,” he said.

Anmol added: “All of them are from theatre, they were junior artistes. They all lived near my village. So, during lockdown, we used to meet and improvise. I used to handle cameras, and Ramnish and Harman did production design, costumes, property supervision. They used to manage all this by themselves. Even during post production --- foley, sounds, dialogues -- we used to manage at our homes.”

The movie has been produced by Dhruv Bakshi and Pardeep Tanna, with Jappreet Singh giving the music.