“The first time I met Osho was in 1978. Since then, I have had two purposes in life — to know myself and to share his vision. When I started working as a filmmaker, I knew that one day, I would make a film about him,” says Lakshen Sucameli, an Italian filmmaker, in the trailer of his five-hour docuseries Ten Thousand Shades of Osho.
Sucameli is now bringing another work, titled Osho the Movie, to Pune, the home of the Osho movement, as part of the Pune International Film Festival. It will be screened at PVR-The Pavilion Mall, Auditorium 6, on February 4, 12.15 pm.
Sucameli had travelled to India in 1978 to meet Osho, considered one of the most controversial spiritual figures in the world.
Sucameli, who was born in Rimini, Italy, in 1956, has lived in Pune and Rajneeshpuram in Oregon, the US, as a sanyasi (Hindu ascetic). His name, Lakshen, was given by Osho.
While filming the 104-minute-long Osho the Movie, Sucameli set out to show Osho’s life from the eyes of the people who had known and lived with him. According to an official statement, Osho the Movie is not a propaganda piece and will, on the contrary, “examine all elements of Osho’s life, including the contentious ones”.
Sucameli has the advantage of an insider’s view of the philosophy and practice of Osho’s ideas. The film provides the perspectives of people who are ardent devotees, those who abandoned the belief and several who are hostile to Osho. “Nobody was indifferent,” says Sucameli.
He has been making documentaries regularly since setting up Navala Productions Ltd, a film and TV production company, in Rome in 1992. The company’s first feature was Blue Line followed by Zorba il Buddha. Both were supported by the Italian Ministry of Art and Entertainment.
