DANISH RENZU, a Kashmiri director and screenwriter, tells MUSBA HASHMI about the inspiration behind The Illegal, which is playing on  Amazon Prime Video, as also his journey to becoming an independent filmmaker

Every film starts with a  mere thought which turns into a story. But behind this single thought, there is a lot of inspiration that one needs. For The Illegal, director Danish Renzu’s inspiration was from his own experiences of working in the US.

By living the American dream — from being a student to working a couple of jobs — he has seen it all. But it’s not what people think it is, there’s much more. A lot of struggle and sacrifice by immigrants.

“While being in the US, I have met a lot of fellow immigrants and the one thing that was common was that they all made sacrifices in order to take care of their families back home. So, The Illegal is the story of these individuals who might have not been able to make it big, but had the courage to not give up. My experience coupled with the experiences of people I met there, is weaved into this film,” Renzu explains. The process of documenting the experiences in a movie wasn’t tough for Renzu, because he had brilliant actors who were able to justify their roles.

“Suraj (Sharma) did a great job. He connected with the character, Hassan, since he is also an immigrant, is from Delhi and has lived in the US.  Even his age matched with that of the character. There were so many factors that contributed in bringing that authenticity to the character. Hence, it wasn’t that difficult to bring it all together since I had good talent on board,” he says. Not to mention, Suraj was Renzu’s first and obvious choice.

While we all know how hard it is for actors to make a place for themselves in the industry, but it is rare that we talk about how equally challenging, if not more, it is for the filmmakers as well.

Renzu, who started back in 2015, says it was a career switch for him from engineering to filmmaking. “It was a territory that I didn’t know much about before I signed for it. My films have been independently produced by me. It’s been a learning experience for me to make a film from the scratch,” he says. The good side is that there was no pressure on him from anyone. He was independent to tell the kind of stories he wanted to. “However, the tough part is to put it all together.

The post-production work, the release, it takes time because you have to go through a lot of film festival journeys. There’s travel involved, you have to wait for things,” Renzu explains.

The film was originally slated to release last year but because of the pandemic it got postponed. But for Renzu, even the waiting time was something to remember. “It was difficult, but worth it,” he says.

What, of course, did trouble Renzu was the fact that he was leaving a stable job to charter unknown waters.

“I did feel like quitting every second time. But then, remembering my nine to five job, I realised that I wasn’t meant for it. Besides, filmmaking is such a beautiful job. There’s so much you can do when you are making a film. Even though there are times when you feel like things are not working for you, but then the experience itself gives you the motivation to keep on working,” he says.