'Mukti Bhawan' is about life, not death: Director Shubhashish

Shubhashish Bhutiani, the director of "Mukti Bhawan" has said the critically-acclaimed film is not about death but life and how someone starts living when they encounter death.
Shubhashish, who was addressing cinemagoers after the screening of the movie here on Friday, said the film is about relationships and realising the value of life in wake of demise.
"Except two scenes about death, the film is about someone experiencing life and then realising the value of their own life," Shubhashish said.
"Mukti Bhawan" is the story of a middle-aged man (Adil Hussain) who takes his ailing father (Lalit Behl) to a guesthouse in Varanasi, Mukti Bhawan, where one can book a room for maximum 15 days and wait for their death to arrive.

The director said he faced a dilemma, while preparing the script of the film as he wanted to amalgamate the stories of three different people into one.
"Many times I found myself taking three different characters and making them into one person. One of the challenges for me during the writing process was to decide to tell whose story because each one was interesting," he said.

Shubhashish added the most challenging aspect of filming "Mukti Bhawan" was to shoot in the streets of "one of the most chaotic cities in the whole world".
The film, which received Special Jury Mention at the National Film Awards, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2016.

Producer Mahesh Bhutiani said the movie is finding audiences all over the world and is getting great reviews.
"It is playing in about 30-odd film festivals all over the world and it will release in 15 countries including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, UK, Germany, Switzerland and Portugal.