Umesh Bisht: Fiction works need as much research as documentaries

When director Umesh Bisht first pitched Pagglait to Guneet Monga, the film was a one-line idea: a story set in a dark place. And that was enough to pique Guneet’s interest in the film. “Many people found Pagglait relatable because we grounded it in reality and built the film from there,” he says. In a recent conversation, Bisht discussed how Pagglait resonated with the audience, his experience directing the recent thriller-mystic web series Gyaarah Gyaarah, and the progression of documentary filmmaking in India.

‘PEOPLE FOUND PAGGLAIT RELATABLE BECAUSE WE TOOK REALITY AND USED IT TO CREATE THE FILM’
Pagglait explores the grief that follows the untimely death of a young family member. The story centres on the newly widowed Sandhya (Sanya Malhotra), who can’t bring herself to cry, even as those around her are bawling their eyes out.
Umesh says the story of Pagglait was a lived one. He shares, “Many people found Pagglait relatable because we took reality and used it to create the film. People have different ways of dealing with grief, and the story’s irony was that a young widow is unable to grieve for her husband. Sometimes, when it’s expected of you to grieve, you don’t. Grief can manifest in different ways, often unexpectedly. Everyone has their own way of grieving. The father’s character (played by Ashutosh Rana) in Pagglait is also unable to show his grief, so he buries himself in the logistics of daily rituals – deciding how many mattresses or pillows to arrange... With the film, we wanted to show that there’s a reason for sorrow and pain, and you can’t move on until you address it.”

Umesh Bisht says, “Many people found Pagglait relatable because we took reality and used it to create the film”

‘Fiction demands just as much research, if not more’
Bisht’s transition from documentary filmmaker to movie director was seamless, largely due to his background in theater. He says, “I used to shoot my documentaries in a storytelling format. I believed they shouldn’t be cut and dry. When making a documentary, intense research is required. But it is indeed a myth that fiction doesn’t require research. Fiction requires just as much, if not more, research.”
‘Documentaries had started to fade as an art form’
Before directing films, Umesh spent two decades making documentaries on subjects like the Bhopal Gas tragedy, the pharmaceutical industry, and Narmada Bachao Andolan. He recalls, “It was a tough time for documentary makers, but there were always talented individuals like Anand Patwardhan, Prakash Jha, and Nishtha Jain. Back then, Doordarshan and the Films Division supported us, and PSBT was also a help. However, documentaries were marginalised and started to fade as an art form. The recent resurgence of documentaries on streaming platforms has felt like a ray of hope.”

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