After scoring a hat-trick at the National Awards, Madhur Bhandarkar, long ignored by the powerful camps of Bollywood, is vindicated. He looks ahead with movies about ramps and prisons
You’ve won your third National Award in seven years, with Traffic Signal (Best Director) doing the honours for you this time. What’s your USP?
My best compliment is that my films aren’t just critically-acclaimed, National Award-winners, but also commercial successes. Neither Chandni Bar nor Traffic Signal were blockbusters, but they doubled the money for their producers. A non-starrer like Traffic Signal, made with Rs 4 crore, earned its producers Rs 12 crore. That’s because my films aren’t preachy or slow and thus they belie the traditional perception of art-house, award-winning cinema. My films are middle-of-the-road. They have commercial ingredients that are presented realistically with relatable characters.

But you’ve not won any popular Hindi film award. Why the irony?
I am ignored because I don’t belong to any coterie and have never had a big actor backing my films. Acclaimed performances by my actors, who are incidentally popular, like Tabu (Chandni Bar), Bipasha Basu (Corporate) and Konkona (Page 3) have been ignored too at popular awards. Page 3 was nominated for popular awards but won only in the few technical categories.
My three National Awards though and the fact that the National Film Archives has preserved four of my films—Chandni Bar, Corporate, Traffic Signal and Page 3—unconsciously reflect on the selection processes of popular awards. I am aware of coterie and camp influence theories in such awards but have never really gone into their brass details. It’s an interesting subject and if I feel like making a film on the politics of awards, ‘the ignore’ will definitely contribute to it.

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