Actor Rajesh Tailang's Directorial Is About Self-Discovery

Actor, director and writer Rajesh Tailang, acclaimed for his work in 'Mirzapur', 'Delhi Crime', 'Bandish Bandits', 'Pagglait' and 'Selection Day',is excited about the release of a short film, 'Selfie', written and directed by him which will release on February 15 on You Tube Channel. 

"Basically, as an artist when you observe you get creative ideas. Once my flight was delayed and I was sitting at the airport looking at people clicking selfies and this concept sparked in my mind since a long time," he tells us. 

"I have learnt from my training of acting about self-discovery. I believe self-discovery is the most important thing for an artist or anybody else. I felt word 'Selfie' is originated from word self and it has to be something about yourself. But nowadays selfie is lesser about oneself, and about attracting more likes, comments or how people perceive you or how you want to portray yourself to others. This concept was in my mind but I didn't know how to present it. So, I thought what if someone doesn't know how to click 'Selfie', then it becomes a kind of symbolic that he or she doesn't knows, how to click but actually these things generate from an emotion when a person is himself not satisfied through his picture.," Tailang adds. 

Talking about the storyline of the short film he adds, "I thought of making this short film in the form of journey form of a girl. Because girls ideally have more pressure of role play and societal expectations and how someone wants to perceive her be it a family member, colleague, friend or spouse. So how other wants to perceive her is more important than she herself and tries adjusts herself but is never satisfied. In the film, I have portrayed a girl who belongs from a well to do family and has a good job and everything. But still, she lacks that confidence of how people will look at her and perceive her. It's not necessary that even if you have everything you have self-discovered yourself."

Talking about the unique element this film gives he says, "Have you ever taken your real Selfie? Your real self? This is the crux of this short film. The new element that I have tried in this film as a genre is to keep it in the form of ghazal without dialogues. So, I requested Aalok Srivastav who is a renowned poet to write a song and then the music happened. So, this is how it shaped up in a unique way. It is a musical short film."

Sharing about how he juggles between acting, direction, writing and editing he tells,"I don't like to sit idle and I need more than one form of art to express myself. Hence, I like to explore other forms all well like writing and direction. I always say I might be out of work but I'm never free. It's like creating magic through a parallel world so it doesn't matter what role I take up whether writer, director or producer."