On invitation of Filmy Box music company, we got an opportunity to meet producer Dr. Sanjay Patole at the music release of his maiden film ‘Riwayat’, based on the shocking issue of female foeticide. The film releases on September 7. Sandeep Hattangadi recounts a brief chat with Dr. Sanjay Patole.
What instigated you to produce this film?
Firstly, I would like to thank Narendra Singh and Arshad Siddique of Filmy Box since it is due to them that I am able to release ‘Riwayat’ in India as I am settled in Australia, and am a Professor of Neonatology by profession. and my colleague Dr. Ajay Rane is the founding Professor in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at James Cook University. We both are motivated to preserve life – one as an obstetrician and the other as a neonatologist since the last 25 years. We have been saving many infant lives here, I have even saved a child who was just weighing 450 grams. We have learnt that about 100 million baby girls are missing from this world since 1984; 40 million from India alone, which pushed us to do something about this issue, and we thought cinema is the best medium.
What is the meaning of ‘Riwayat’?
It means ‘tradition’ or ‘parampara’ in Hindi.
Why did you selected new actors instead of stars ?
Established actors are having a particular image, whereas new actors are not; this was the main reason we took Samapika as the main protagonist in the film along with Khalid Siddique, Salil Ankola, Achint Kaur, Sourabh Dubey, Aditya Lakhia, Narendra Jha, Rajendra Gupta, Mangal Kenkre, Gauri Kulkarni, Major Vikram, Rakhi Mishra, Tanya Tiwari and Sayaji Shinde in main roles. These actors can justify their characters.
Your director, Vijay Patkar is a well-known comedian in Hindi and Marathi cinema, what made you to select him as your director?
I knew Vijay since many years, so I can understand that there is a serious person behind his comic image, besides, he has made a hard hitting film in Marathi ‘Ek Unad Diwas’, so I was confident that he can give justice to this film. I also have a very good technical team.
Do you think ‘Riwayat’ will stop female foeticide?
We are trying. I believe the audience will be forced to think on this, even ‘Star of the Millenium’ Amitabh Bachchan expressed his feelings at an event, where he said, “How can we congratulate ourselves as superstars when we lose millions of female infants to foeticide.”