Ever since the films of Steven Spielberg first held him spellbound Asham Kamboj has enjoyed a life-long love of cinema. Few of us make our childhood dreams a reality but after years of perseverance and hard work Asham is now the head of his own production company and is looking forward to directing his first feature film.
Asham first found out about the Arts Development team through an old school friend who worked at the council. 'It had been two years since I'd left university,' Asham remembers, 'I was really stuck and didn't know where to go.' Asham's friend suggested that he contact Arts Development. 'Andy Lee (Creative Arts Manager) sat me down and said there were these small funds available called Awards For All. With Andy's help Asham successfully secured £4,500 to finance his short film, Rent. Once he'd been awarded initial funding Asham found it much easier to source extra funding from other bodies.
'Andy helped me to get another £2,100 for Rent and then Southern Arts (now Arts Council England South East) gave me some money as well. It all happened after they'd seen the first rushes of the film' Asham is keen to stress the importance of Arts Development as a support team for the arts community. 'When you know nothing about funding applications you're scared. You look at the questions and think, 'How am I going to answer them?'' Asham found that the biggest help was just having someone sit down and talk him through the questions. 'Now when I look at them I don't find them so hard.' Says Asham, 'When you look deep down at the question it's a lot of common sense. You might think that a certain word means one thing when expressed in a sentence and you need someone to say, 'Look, this is what it actually says.'' Arts Development gave advice to Asham about setting up his own company and introduced him to influential people by setting up networking events. At one meeting he met Asham to Carey Sawney of the British Film Institute who later selected Rent for inclusion in the London Film Festival.
Of course, securing funds is only one aspect of filmmaking. To actually shoot Rent Asham needed to recruit a production team. After advertising for cast and crew, Asham came across Sandip Mahal, an editor. Asham used Sandip's network of contacts to enlist others including Steve Kendrick, a cinematographer, and enabled two local talents to showcase their art. Yusuf Miah worked as Assistant Art Director and Asham's brother musician Amit Kamboj wrote his first film soundtrack. Rent went on to be screened at festivals as far afield as Montevideo.
Although he didn't know it at the time networking with funders through Arts Development was to have a big impact on his next project, Sandwich. Whilst Rent was going around the festivals Arts Development supported applications to Awards For All, LFVDA, and Southern Arts. Sandwich would be Asham's second film to be screened at the London Film Festival.
Filmmaking is a team effort and since directing Rent and Sandwich Asham seen the wider impact his work has had on the community. As Asham admits, when he started, '...there were no networks.' Now there is a thriving community of young filmmakers some of whom he has taught as a guest speaker at youth centres and colleges. He has even instigated the Innov8 Film & Soundtrack project, a two-week course held during the summer offering young people the opportunity to make short films. After Sandwich Asham went on to direct his third short film Stain,. Asham admits that if his feature film goes into production it will require his undivided concentration but he hopes to continue to working with the community in order to '...create the building blocks for future filmmakers.'
Interview: Andrew Unsworth
Photograph: Malcolm Glover