"It was unique experience": Shahana Goswami on working with Kanu Behl, Manoj Bajpayee in 'Despatch' at IFFI 2024

In a conversation with ANI, she said, "It was a unique experience," she added while sharing how it was to work with the director, " I am a big fan of his work and after working in the film even become a much bigger fan of him as a director. It was a very special experience."

Directed by Kanu Behl, 'Despatch' also stars Shahana Goswami and Arrchita Agarwaal. The story revolves around the life of an investigative journalist Joy (played by Manoj Bajpayee) as he navigates the murky waters of media corruption, power struggles, and personal dilemmas while chasing a high-stakes story.

"I have few journalist friend so I have an idea about it and the same reality has been shown in the film."

Director Kanu Behl shared when he started working on the film and how the journey started, "I started writing this film around 2016. So, from 2016, me and my co-writer, we both started discussing this idea and after that, it took us around 1.5 years of research. Because we honestly didn't know much about this world. And, although it's not that difficult to write the characters they work with at the end of the day. Because if you are thinking about them like a human being, then you are also a human being. At the end of the day, every character is a human being. But still, it was important to understand the context of the film."

He continued, "So we talked to a lot of journalists, a lot of policemen, some underworld people. And we tried to understand the world we wanted to portray first. There were some interesting cases going on at that time. So we spent a lot of time in the court listening to the cases, recording the characters, understanding the behaviour. So for about a year and a half, there was research plus writing. That was the initial phase of writing. And then after a year and a half, we started writing the film. And then the journey of the film continued till eventually Manoj read it and he liked it."

On discussing how challenging was to shoot the film, he said, "We knew that it would be difficult because we had started shooting in the second wave of Covid. And it's a fully location film. There is no set, there is nothing. So practically every day, we were going to a new location. And after a point, it becomes very difficult to control the location in an atmosphere like Covid. if you ask me honestly, I knew on the first day of the shoot that Now we are going to get infected. Let's see what day it is and how many days it will be. so, it was tough."

Meanwhile, talking about the event, IFFI 2024 will present over 180 international films from 81 countries, including 16 world premieres, 3 international premieres, 43 Asian premieres and 109 Indian premiers. With the selection of celebrated titles and award-winning films from the global circuit, this year's festival is set to leave a lasting impact on audiences.

Notably, the organisers have planned to come up with an extensive tribute program to honour the 100th birth anniversaries of four Indian Cinema Legends: Actor-Filmmaker Raj Kapoor, Director Tapan Sinha, Telugu Cinema star Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR), and Singer Mohammed Rafi, as per Variety.

The 55th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is taking place in Goa till November 28. (ANI)