Dreams Don’t Die Young : In Conversation with Siddharth Bedi on Filmmaking and Dreams

Shot exceptionally on a mobile phone in addition to other equipment by the competent independent filmmaker Siddharth Bedi and featuring an instrumental cover of Elephant Gun by Beirut as the background score by Shirish Prakash Singh this short film took our hearts away and the internet by storm for all the right reasons!

A bright, affirming message wrapped in under four minutes, what makes this indie film stand out is the light-hearted take on sweet, homely dreams which inspires you for not giving up on your dreams by the sheer subtlety and simplicity of its narrative.

Inspired from reading one of Regha Jha’s newsletters, what started as a stand-alone short film ‘My Sister and Hand-Me-Downs’ gave birth to ‘My Sisters and Dreams’ : an exhilarating, breath of fresh air watch as opposed to the dominant dark, gritty shows ruling the OTT platforms as a very agreeable and encouraging sequel.

On quizzing him on the core idea of the sequel he shared a learning he applied while making the film which he had gained as a Theatre student ; Suspension Of Disbelief which means any art form should take you away from your world to a different world. His intention was to take people away from a corona ridden physical world which was completely successful.

Having worked for one and a half years as an Assistant director with Arre, an OTT platform specialising in web series, documentaries he was then promoted to Production Designer and has worked with actors like Mayur More and would love to work with filmmakers like Anurag Kashyap, Edgar Wright if presented with an opportunity.

He believes compatibility between actors and directors is extremely crucial and one needs to find the actor which will best suit the character a director is looking for. The secret to a professional on-screen coordination with his sister owes to the fact that Tanya Bedi and he are siblings and hence the artistic compatibility between them was effortless and perfectly natural.

His inspiration to become a filmmaker is not driven by some outward motivation or validation but is inherent and comes from the fact that he originally did not want to be a filmmaker but an actor.

“I wanted to be an actor after watching Heath Ledger’s performance in Dark Knight but in third year of college I decided that I should take the director’s seat rather than continue as an actor.”

A play on political inaction titled ‘This Ends Now’ directed by himself in 2019 garnered him much praise and positive feedback after which he decided to pursue as a filmmaker.

The filmmaker also believes filmmaking is a leader’s role.

“It’s a collaborative medium and hence a director is not the same as a dictator. Directors have the sole authority from taking the film from pre to post production.”

On being asked to elaborate how music plays an important role in portraying the concept/message of a film, this is what the filmmaker had to say:

“For a lot of directors such as myself, we listen to the music and then we write the scene or we imagine the last frame of painting and then we work our way backwards from there. It’s an audio-visual format and music plays a huge part.”

“I specifically loved the track I used for the second film because to me it feels like it was made for the film. I personally designed and worked on the instrumental version of the track called Elephant Gun by Beirut with Shirish Prakash Singh. I first listened to the music, set the mood and worked backwards towards writing the story.”

His recent favourite films include both regional films and films from global cinema : ‘Super Deluxe’, ‘Kumbalangi Nights’, ‘Parasite’ and ‘1917’ and favourite genre is comedy-dramas like ‘Kapoor & Sons’ and ‘Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na.’

“Although 1917 is a technical marvel, Parasite is a masterpiece.”

“Personally, I feel Bollywood has a long way to go for participation in Academy Awards, but I feel we have a promising time coming with independent filmmakers.”

In light of the socio-political issue based films increasing in number in the recent years, he signed off answering wisely saying,

“Filmmaking even though an art is also a commercial medium. If I had to choose a socio-political issue to make a film on, it would be about Chinese community in India.”