Bala and his blind ambition
What drives you to make a film?
I am attracted to strong characters that have a purpose in life and both in Green Card Fever and Blind Ambition the central characters have that desire. I also believe in the crucial mixture of entertainment clubbed with enlightenment. The film or script must have the potential to move or touch the heart and emotions of any audience. In my first read of any script, I look for this potential by giving it a critical read. Ultimately, filmmaking is also an opportunity to reinforce the value of human relationships. I love happy endings that happen meaningfully and are not contrived.
Blind Ambition is about the internal journey that every person takes in pursuit of truth, to find answers; to have a better understanding of the world. I feel it is a sports film where Sapna Shah not only works hard externally but internally she takes up a more arduous journey.
What kind of preparation went into the film?
I went to the National Federation of the Blind California to research, discuss and interact with many blind people from different levels of vision impairments (those who may be born blind to those who became blind and those who had different levels of impairment – may be partially blind etc.) I also interacted with blind runners and sports people, musicians and others in all walks of life.
Tell us about the initial difficulties in making Blind Ambition?
It wasn't easy to get funding, as the trend amongst financiers was to go for moneymaking genres like action thrillers, horror and other exploitative films. Then once that got sorted out, the issue became to stage the marathon sequences convincingly. I approached various marathon authorities all over the United States to see if I could film on location but either got a no from most of them or they quoted a very high price. Then in my research, I found that the Carlsbad marathon had a blind runner who had been running for the past many years. With a letter from the National Federation Of the Blind California, I went to the Carlsbad marathon authorities and they readily agreed. Ultimately, the marathon shoot was a marathon for our entire crew and cast. We began at midnight ended very late in the evening, shooting for almost 18 hours straight. We also literally ran the full length of the 26.2 miles. But when we saw the edited film we knew that all our efforts had paid off.
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