Senain Kheshgi & Geeta V. Patel

What’s the question that comes up most after a screening of your documentary Project Kashmir?

Geeta: People usually ask us why we didn’t put lots of information in the documentary, like you would normally see on television. That’s the documentary style people expect, especially when your film is about a place […] Project Kashmir is actually a reaction to that type of documentary. There’s so much information available nowadays about how people fight in conflict zones and what the stakes are. But, as a viewer, it doesn’t make you feel anything. That’s why we took something so complicated and political, and made it personal.

Were you already friends when you started this project?

G: We knew each other because we both worked for the same arts organization and were friends. But we had never spent a lot of time together. In that sense travelling together and being in a warzone was a real Litmus test.

As the film unfolds, it looks as if the two of you are growing more distant. Was that really the case?

G: The documentary is really true to how we were in Kashmir. The whole process of what we were seeing and hearing was so overwhelming. And on top of that, to be confronted with who you are and what you believe, it really got to us. It did affect our friendship. Not in the sense that we had any blow-out fights, but we didn’t talk about these issues either. We would just get quiet, and so some sort of resentment grew, as you can tell by a couple of scenes. Sanain: It shows that when you stop talking and keep sweeping things under the rug, it just builds animosity. This is very evident in what’s happening in the region, where India and Pakistan aren’t even talking about the conflict and the party of the Kashmiris is never even brought to the table.

How did you find the people who guided you on this journey: Muzamil, Aarti and Khurram?

G: We did a lot of preparation before we started shooting. We attended a few events in the US where there were Kashmiris. And from there on we met as many Kashmiris in the US as we could and discussed our ideas. Many of them were very sceptical about our project, but they still helped us meet people and connected us with their families in Kashmir. After two years, we had a list of people through the work we had done. Most of these people were from a specific social class, because they had family in the US. So when we got to Kashmir, we branched out to as many people as we could. By the end we had met and talked to so many people, that we narrowed it down. We had about 250 hours of footage. So we could have made many different films (laughs). And we did make a couple of those!

Despite all this research and preparation, you sometimes come across as rather naïve in the film. Was that on purpose?

S: We didn’t go to Kashmir with any preconceived ideas. It was quite the opposite: we wanted to be as open as possible. We wanted to go in without a question that needed answering. We just thought: ’let’s see what people will talk about’. And so we talked to people for hours and hours about the history and complexity of the conflict, and how it affected their personal lives and friendships. And through that, we slowly absorbed what the conflict was all about.

What was it like being in a warzone?

S: It was a whirlwind atmosphere. And in some ways very deceiving. There were days when it seemed like we were in paradise, and you nearly forgot about the conflict. But then we would sit outside our boat house drinking tea, and suddenly hear gunshots.

Is there a scene that just says it all, according to you?

S: There’s a scene where Muzamil says: “This is a film about selective truth”. And he’s right. We have to learn to accept each other’s truth.

Laura Groeneveld