How Shreya Dev Dubes Bharatanatyam training helped her in filming Oscar shortlisted Bittu

Director Karishma Dev Dube ‘Bittu’ made headlines when the film made it to the 10 films shortlisted in the Best Live Action Short Film segment of the 93rd Academy Awards and will now be vying for a spot in the final five, which will be announced on March 15.

Inspired by a poisoning accident that took place in a Bihar school in 2013 that took up the lives of 23 children, Karishma, in an interview with Film Companion, shares the journey of finalizing the cast for the film.

Also read: Bittu | Movie Review by Anupama Chopra | Karishma Dube | Film Companion

Two months before the start of the shooting, the 31-year-old director flew down from New York to Koti, Dehradun to conduct theatre workshops for the locals in the hopes of casting some of them. The team later finalized nine-year-old Rani Kumari as one of the lead.

However, the rest of the villagers couldn’t understand whether she was shooting a Bollywood film, a play, or a commercial. This was the time Shreya, 34, came up with a solution.

“Shreya’s idea was to hang out with the community and organize some sort of activity so they could get to know me. I showed them a couple of films like ‘Lion’ (2016), which had children as the protagonists, on my laptop. And then I showed them some ‘making-of’ videos so they could understand how this worked and what a camera was and why there would be a crew surrounding them,” said the director.

Shreya was glad to spend time with them and revealed how her Bharatanatyam training helped her here.

“…my Bharatanatyam training has taught me a sense of rhythm, how to move with the actors, how to give them their space,” she said.

Also Read: Have You Made A Short Film? Here Are 13 Platforms To Help You Find An Audience

She and Karishma created a ‘bubble of trust’ with them, working with minimal lighting and a sparse crew, trying to make the cameras as invisible as they could for the cast to feel comfortable.

Karishma is currently in LA, where a publicity team is trying to get ‘Bittu’ reviewed in major American trade outlets so that the film reaches as many Academy voters as possible ahead of the Oscar nominations that will be announced on March 15.

The director says that “We’re trying to instigate a conversation and make people see that ‘Bollywood’ is not a genre and there are many more amazing films coming out of India.”