Farin and Shaheen spill the beans on 'Baba Someone's Following Me'

Picture this: Your daughter who lives 9,000 km away calls you out of the blue at three o'clock in the morning and says, "Baba, keep talking, someone's following me."

What would you do? More importantly, what can you do? 

For director Shihab Shaheen, those ten minutes of phone conversation were harrowing, for nothing feels more helpless to a father than being able to do nothing about ensuring her safety.

It was this 2019 real-life incident that inspired Shaheen to make a movie out of it. A movie that's not just a "crime-thriller-drama" according to the director, but something that also taps into "human angle by exploring the dynamics of the relationship between a father and daughter, with a touch of fiction on the side."

Before its release on 'Binge' on 23 November, director Shihab Shaheen and lead actor Tasnia Farin spoke to The Business Standard regarding their movie 'Baba Someone's Following Me'. 

"I tried to fictionalise what a desperate father could do in such a scenario. In reality, there isn't much to be done anyway," said the director. 

Sketch: TBS

To blend with the narrative, Shaheen designed other supporting characters and roles to add weight to the script.

Farin portrayed the distressed daughter 'Bijoya'. "I don't think so. For me, every character I play is real," Farin said, upon being asked if she had to add realism to her portrayal of a very real incident. 

For Farin, as long as she finds the scripts convincing and engaging, it doesn't matter whether she's acting in a real life inspired character or a fictional one.

"It piqued my interest and kept me gripped," she said.

More than the crime-thriller genre, stories involving complex human stories are what draws Farin in. She is more inclined towards such films rather than roles where the character and the script are very flat lined – leaving no room for the actor to showcase their talents.

"I look for stories that have complex emotions that humans feel and express. And also, the ones we don't express. I feel 'not expressing' is the art that I enjoy more," she added. "It's normal for people to feel a lot of emotions but having no outlet or way of expressing. Not expressing is an expression in itself."

It was clear from the trailer that the relationship between Bijoya and her father is not amicable anymore due to reasons not yet disclosed. According to Farin, "different relationships have different dynamics and different movies try exploring it in different ways. This film was no exception."

Apart from the dynamics of the father-daughter relationship that serves as the core premise, one other aspect the director wanted to uphold was racism faced by students and people from this part of the world when they are residing abroad.

"There's a conception regarding Bangladeshis living abroad that their lives are lived in luxury. But I felt like portraying the dark side of living abroad as well. When I visited Australia to shoot the film, I got to see first hand that a lot of residents have experienced racial discrimination," he said.

Farin, on the other hand, believes not many movies in the industry have been made where the lives of Bangladeshi students abroad have been portrayed. Being an avid traveller herself, Farin revealed that she has faced subtle racist remarks in European countries due to being a woman of colour.

"I could relate to it personally as my own experiences played into it. Such films are needed because many Bangladeshi students reside abroad and hardly ever are their stories told in movies. So such movies are also a statement, because I think students abroad can relate to it and that must be liberating for them," she added.

Shooting in Australia was something that Farin thoroughly enjoyed and it was a completely new experience for her. It allowed her to experience the diversity and the differences in how foreign actors and the foreign movie industries function.

"When you're working with someone from another country, you get to observe how they process their work and the way they approach acting. It was very enjoyable," she said.