Making, "Calcutta, I'm Sorry": The Idea, the Process, the Completion

Abstract

This article highlights the process of taking the germ of an idea inspired by real life and converting it imaginatively into a screen story and eventually as a full-length feature film. It also focuses on the writer-director and his early life in a small railway colony in South India. He grew up watching many movies by illegally entering a touring talkies near his home. He falls in love with the art of cinema and dreams of becoming a filmmaker one day. It took him almost fifty years to make his first film Going Away (2013). His second feature Calcutta, I'm Sorry (2022), a road film / emotional drama, was not easy to put together. He was lucky to find a producer who believed in his script and gave him a free hand to make his vision come alive. Calcutta, I'm Sorry has a big distinction: it is the first Indian film centered around Anglo-Indian characters written and directed by an Anglo-Indian. It is not a story about the Anglo-Indian community per se, but it brings out the essence of being Anglo-Indian and its core theme of redemption will resonate well with anyone from any community.