.jpeg "Featured Image")
Aamir Bashir discusses the passage of time since his directorial debut, ‘Harud.’ He reflects on how much Kashmir, and India, have changed. Bashir contrasts the initial post-2019 narrative of mainstreaming Kashmir with what he perceives as the ‘kashmirisation of India.’
When making ‘Harud,’ Bashir says he wasn’t concerned with audience reception or success. His primary focus was simply bringing the film to fruition. If remaking ‘Harud’ today, Bashir suggests that he would have liked to make the film more accessible to wider audiences, but he stands by the film he created. He says the film was born out of a need to tell an authentic Kashmiri story.
Bashir finds that raising funds for similar films, especially those with a political subject matter related to Kashmir, remains exceedingly difficult. He self-produced ‘The Winter Within’ with limited international funding, but it has not found a distributor despite festival accolades. Bashir offers his perspective on the current state of his acting career, hinting at the challenges of the industry, including the importance of social media presence, and the pressures of the recession.
