All about 'Drishtant', India's first feature film having a visually challenged cast

Actors Ratan Dubey and Babita Saroj on the sets of Drishtant, India's first film with visually challenged cast.

While content-driven films are not unusual in Marathi film industry, a film with visually challenged cast and crew is a first for the entire film space in India.

Drishtant, an upcoming Marathi venture is the idea of director Abhijit K Zanjal, who wanted to promote the message of organ donation and for this he not only got on board visually challenged cast but some of the crew members are also visually impaired.

"Around 70 percent of the cast and crew is blind. Along with the actors, music composer, technicians and even the editor is blind. For the casting process, Zanjal had auditioned more than 1,500 people," producer Tanmay Telang told Moneycontrol.

He further said, "The actors are highly motivated. You can't figure out that that they are differently abled. They are creating a masterpiece and they wont be able to watch it. They have acted so well that you can't figure out that they are blind."

The film which is currently preparing for film festivals like Cannes Film Festival had its share of struggle to make the project come alive.

Telang said that it took five years to complete the project.

"The movie has been shot in portions. The cast and crew was taken on an island in Goa where they have shot scenes underwater and these were not easy scenes to shoot. So, things took time. Also, the actors did not know Marathi and they learned the language for the film. And they have done dubbing for the film as well. Imagine they (actors) can't watch the scene and they have done dubbing. A normal dubbing session takes two to three hours but for them it took around a week," said Telang.

Talking about the struggles, actor Hemendra Pratap Singh said, "For me, camera facing is very difficult but director Zanjal used to give sound and ask to look in a particular direction.”

Ratan Dubey, who essays the role of Anand, pointed out that script reading was also the big barrier for the actors because it was in print format. "Our director immediately started to work on audio scripts. That was the perfect decision because we had so many long dialogues in the film.”

He further said, “We did training sessions where our DOP (director of photography) Khushdeep guided us on how to move our head and body according to close up shots and for the different angles."

Along with the technical challenges, Dubey said that the biggest challenge is the stereotype that it's not possible to make a full length movie with many visually challenged actors. "Now, we have proved all of them wrong,” he said.

Drishtant, which will release on an over-the-top (OTT) platform next year, will be dubbed in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu to widen the reach of the film.

With the film not being restricted to Marathi-speaking audience, actor Babita Saroj believes that Drishtant will break the barrier. "The film may open the door of the film industry, at least, for all visually challenged artistes and it will also inspire people for organ donation.”

Saroj, who studies in St. Xavier’s college in Mumbai, bagged the role when director Zanjal was looking for visually challenged talents with the help of Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC). While Saroj has always been a performer, she said that Drishtant has made her dream come true of being an actor. And she has a lot of hopes riding on this film.

Even Shubham Rane, who essays the character of a waiter in the film, said that this film can bring some new perspective towards people/artistes with blindness or other sort of disability. "Drishtant can bring awareness about the ambitions and hidden talent of artistes/people with disability," he said.