Featured Image Credit: Netflix / Matt Winkelmeyer via Getty Images
Topics: Film, Netflix, TV and Film
Michael Slavin
Topics: Film, Netflix, TV and Film
The director of controversial banned erotic film Gandu has opened up about the experience of watching his girlfriend, an actor in the movie, carry out unsimulated sexual acts on camera.
Qaushiq Mukherjee, known as Q, wrote and directed the highly controversial movie.
Gandu is an Indian film focused on a young rapper who steals from his mother’s lover in order to buy drugs, and continue his dream of becoming a successful musician.
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The film was banned in several countries due to the unsimulated sexual acts shown, and was recently added to Netflix in the UK.
This includes an unsimulated blowjob that was given to Anubrata Basu, who played Gandu, by Rituparna Sen, Q’s girlfriend at the time.
LADbible spoke to Q and asked about not only how they filmed these scenes, but what it was like directing his girlfriend during them.
When asked about how they filmed the scenes, he said he had no control over how the actors would interact, leaving it entirely up to them.
Q stated that in effect, his only job was to film what happened.
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He said: “So many times I would set something up. We didn't have any other agenda but to push the story forward.
“The actors would decide on what to do and how to do it, and I would decide how to film it. I wouldn't even change them around.”
“Everything was unsimulated.
“I don't have much control over making of the frame or what is happening inside the frame.”
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When asked about how he felt watching his girlfriend film the scene where she gave unsimulated oral sex to another actor, Q said: “We were all very nervous on that day, because this was that day that we would shoot the sex scene.
"Apart from that, I don't think there was any concern, because we've been practicing that for the last six months to come there.”
He went on to state there were nerves surrounding the scene due to the fact they felt if anyone was to see it, this would be why.
He admitted he used the sex scenes in the film as ‘Trojan horse’ to get people to watch the movie, saying: “Everyone was like ‘oh s**t, there’s a blowjob scene'. So even if you're fast forwarding it, watching it at 3x and just skipping through it, you would end up watching at least 15 minutes of the film before you can find the f**king scene”
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Despite this though, he also admitted that he never thought anyone would even see the movie.
He said: “We didn't think this film would go anywhere. We thought that we were making a neighborhood film, which will be watched by our friends.
“Because I was nobody, and there was no production house involved. There was nothing involved which makes films go outside of their little circles”
The film went on to screen at the Berlin and London Film Festival, and received a positive review from Variety.
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Gandu is available to watch on Netflix now.