Tuesday, September 6 2005 19:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Thiruvananthapuram: "I have always taken care to see that I do not repeat myself," said well-known director Adoor Gopalakrishnan, who has been awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke award for 2004.

"If you repeat yourself, you get bored. The audience will also be not interested in what they are familiar with. For me, every aspect of film-making is a challenging experience and I enjoy every moment of it," he told PTI in an interview.

He said no aspect of film-making, right from the idea, could be set aside as unimportant. Film took the audience to the core of experience wherever they were in the world. While being specific about the life and times of a particular country or region, films should have universal appeal at another level, he said.

Describing himself as a `struggling film-maker,' he said for creating a true work of art, one should be true to himself. Screenplay was the film-maker's fundamental tool for creation, he said, adding his early association with the theatre movement had helped him evolve into a film director.

Adoor, who belonged to the second batch of the Film and Television Institute of India at Pune in 1962, said it was a great learning experience for him with teachers like the renowned director Ritwik Khatak to train them. "We used to watch some very good Hindi films made in those days," he said.

On current trends in world cinema, he said there had not been any phenomenon which could be described as `movements' in filmdom in recent decades. Good films were coming from countries like China, Iran, South Korea and Japan.

The advancement of technology had helped the growth of cinema, Adoor said. However, the creative potential was not often being put to good use in films. On the lack of contemporary subjects in Indian movies, he said what was current could well be like a newspaper report. "A film set in the past can also be very contemporary in its impact," he said.

Films had to be topically relevant and the audience should get the resonance of the past from them, he said. Adoor said `perfectionism' in his works was a trait of his character. He always wanted to see that minor details were not overlooked. "It is part of my character. Everyone who knows me are aware of this," he said.

He said new, young directors were coming out with films every year in the country, which was a promising trend. "But one should wait to see their second films. Zeal alone is not enough, a lot of hard work and concentration on the subject is essential," he said.

Adoor, who had not thought of his next feature film, said he would be making a documentary on `Mohiniyattam,' the shooting of which would begin on September 18. The documentary, being produced in association with a French dancer who had learnt `Mohiniyattam,' has been titled `Dance of the Enchantress.'