Qaushiq Mukherjee, also known as Q, the director of the controversial and banned erotic film “Gandu,” has shared his experiences of observing his girlfriend perform unsimulated s*xual acts in the film.
Q both wrote and directed this Indian movie, which tells the story of a young rapper who resorts to stealing from his mother’s lover to fund his aspirations of becoming a successful musician and his drug habit.
“Gandu,” noted for its raw portrayal of reality, was banned in multiple countries but has recently been made available on Netflix in the UK.
One of the film’s most talked-about scenes involves an unsimulated oral s3x act performed by Rituparna Sen, who was Q’s girlfriend at the time, on Anubrata Basu, the actor playing Gandu.
In an interview, Q discussed the process of filming these explicit scenes and what it was like to direct his girlfriend in such intimate moments.
He explained that he allowed the actors full control over their interactions, with his role being merely to capture the events on camera.
Q elaborated on his directorial approach: “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.”
When discussing how he felt about watching his girlfriend film an unsimulated oral scene with another actor, Q revealed the tension on set: “We were all very nervous on that day, because this was the day we would shoot the s3x scene.”
He added that there weren’t any other concerns because they had been preparing for this for six months.
The anticipation was high, partly because they believed that if people were going to watch the film, it would be because of this scene.
Q admitted to using the explicit scenes as a ‘Trojan horse’ to draw viewers to the film. He explained, “Everyone was like ‘oh s**t, there’s a BJ 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.”
Despite leveraging the s3x scenes to attract attention, Q was initially doubtful about the film’s reach.
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.”
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Contrary to his expectations, the film was screened at the Berlin and London Film Festival and received a positive review from Variety.
Gandu is available for streaming on Netflix.
