A still from Azaad

Azaad starts with a homecoming of the eponymous 40-year-old character who returns to his hometown in Rajasthan with his wife. He returns for the death anniversary of his grandfather, who was a freedom fighter. The tale oscillates between the present and 1942, the time of his grandfather and his three friends, and their struggle for freedom. “I was watching the Republic Day parade in January. And, I felt like I was watching it in 1987.

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That parade has not changed at all, despite advance in technology. I wanted to make something related to the freedom struggle that was more contemporary, and that was Azaad’s genesis,” says Sanyal, who also essays the role of the protagonist.

With Azaad, Chandan Roy Sanyal also tried his hand at writing for the first time. Pic/Suresh Karkera

The short, which took all of three days to make, and which also stars Adli Hussain, Abhay Mishra and Sudeep Modak, is engaging and intense and as Sanyal himself admits a mix of ‘Rang De Basanti and Swades’. Sanyal has been seen in movies such as Kaminey and Prague and is a well known Bengali actor. “This character Azaad has been brought up on a diet of freedom struggle stories. And, on his way back home, he gets a surprise visit from the past, and how that changes his life and his perception of the word azaadi is what this movie’s crux is,” he says.

Sanyal also turned writer for the movie, something he hadn’t done before. As research, he did what any true blue cinema fan would do — he watched movies on the freedom struggle. “I watched Shaheed and Chetan Anand’s Haqueeqat. I wanted to make a movie that was on the popular level. Music also plays a big part in the film.” A bit disgruntled at what it takes to make a full-fledged movie —“the money and all”, Sanyal is now a fan of the short film. In the past 14 months, he has made three of them, Hiroshima and 33MM being the other two. “33 MM got me a lot of praise, and I plan to put it online soon. It's about a director's journey back to reality from oblivion.”

For now, along with waiting to see what audiences think of Azaad, he is waiting for his next film, Island City, to release on November 1, where he stars with actress Tanishtha Mukherjee, and which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year.