One of the things that the director I used to work for in Pakistan taught me, was that before you make any film, you should go to the theaters and look at the audience. Just look at the people. I have made that a habit and I still look around at people’s faces whenever I can in a theater. I try to see at what part they are laughing and when they sit completely still. I think as filmmakers, we are people watchers. We capture the human experience and show it back to humans highlighting the elements we found the most striking.

Being a Pakistani, when surrounded by a large group of people, I have a natural tendency to… explode through ideas of course. Last night at the Prime Cuts Film Festival, I made some comments on stage with regard to how the independent filmmakers I meet here seem to be so occupied with just… trying to be filmmakers. Where all they seem to be doing is getting themselves in to projects so that they get the high of feeling like a filmmaker, maybe by calling themselves a filmmaker and projecting themselves as the enigmatic brilliant masters of artistry. All this is fine until the point that they lose touch of the audience and leave them without any entertainment.

It seems like my comment on stage was taken more like as if I was saying “attention filmmakers, stop expressing yourselves and start making circus acrobat videos that are oozing with flashy entertainment”. None of my words indicated any such thing at all. I stated filmmakers I come across seem too obsessed with the idea of being a filmmaker and not having the primary concern be the audience or their time. I am not referring to any movie that played yesterday at all. This is not about yesterday’s screening. I am referring to a larger problem that we as audiences come across with independent filmmakers. Imagine this, if you were to tell your friend that you went on a vacation to mexico and it was great, but you can’t use any comprehensible language you and your friends share, you can only use your inner mind language of feelings and emotions, making weird sounds that make no sense and then consider your friend not smart enough for not “getting” the deep emotions you meant to convey. Is that fair to your friend? When someone from the audience doesn’t get the filmmaker’s work, the filmmaker may even fold their arms and consider the audience member ‘not smart enough’ to appreciate the masterpiece.

Many people think I say these things because I don’t understand their art. In reality, I actually used to make deep complicated experimental art films and artworks. I have seen all of this expressionism and I speak from what I have learned and how I have changed. Once I worked my ass off for 3 months after leaving my job to make a 2.5 minute film. Even though that project is still well received in the filmmakers circle and has a niche audience because of the poet I was covering, I found myself not connecting with the audience as intensely as I would like to. When it came to playing inside a theater, I could find audience members yawning. I want to do better for these audience members, I want to express myself without losing touch. I have learned and changed.

The belief I expressed on stage is that if your film is entirely You, you, you and your feelings and your expression to a point that you have negligible regard for the audience’s experience, you’re probably better off putting such a personal self-indulgent piece online. When I said this last part, one of the filmmakers sitting next to me, Anton added to the conversation “so confusing, so confusing”. Certainly, with very much respect, I understand that it is confusing. That is EXACTLY why I am asking: What is so confusing? Almost the entire theater audience got what I was saying, all while applauding in agreement. Doesn’t anyone find it strange that during the same applause, there were filmmakers in the same theater, who expect these same audiences to show up at their own films while still disagreeing with them.

The core of the problem in my opinion is at filmmakers focusing on being more and more intense “filmmakers” where it is actually an identity of sort. Its like a role they are playing in society of being some intellectual beacon of their own expression. Again, this is all fine to me until the point where the start loosing touch with the reality… the audience. Sometimes I feel like we as independent filmmakers are trying to be so different from Hollywood, that the word “entertainment” is like what the word “homosexuality” is to conservative societies. As if admitting to making a film for the sake of just entertaining is an act below morals. Entertainmophobes? Look… you can have the most interesting thing in the world to say in your movie as long as the “world” we are talking about is the one behind your two eyes. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying don’t share that interesting thing. I am saying as a filmmaker inviting people in to theaters, you have the responsibility to learn and work on making that interesting thing interesting for the world everyone else shares! Not just yours.

From my learning experiences, what I want to share with filmmakers is this message. Stop having exclusive one sided relationships with these lifeless film equipments. Yes these dollys, lenses, crains and editing softwares are the shiz! it’s great to own them and be able to use them, but don’t forget that their value is not even a lousy knock-off match compared the value of a single human being’s experience. That experience, my friends… is a greater love. If you want to love something, love that. Once you fall in love with the audience, you will find yourself developing special concerns about when your “love” is smiling, when they are getting bored. How much you want to make them excited and how you want them to have a good time. You are a human and they are too, therefore this connection is a far greater source of energy that drives you to work, that drives you to use these equipments not for the sake of using them with mastery but for the sake of using them as a means to engage the audience. You will feel energized to learn the technicalities because the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter now…

Stop trying to fall in love with filmmaking.
Start trying to fall in love with people.

Ali Kapadia