In Versova, Andheri, the hub of film strugglers in Mumbai, everyone has either made or is making an independent film these days in varied formats — fiction, shorts, or documentaries. Digital filmmaking has empowered filmmakers like never before. If you have an idea, a story, willing actors, and some money, making your own film may not be too distant a dream.
But what happens when the dream has been realised? That is the bane of every independent filmmaker in town. It’s like preparing a delicious dinner but having no guests over to play host to. Exhibition and distribution of independent films has been a largely unorganised world, especially since exclusive theatres for alternate, parallel cinema became extinct and television turned commercial. Working your way around to reach the elusive viewers then becomes far more important than making the film itself.
Stroke of luck
Some films get pure lucky and make their presence felt in the festival circuit to wind their way to regular commercial release. Sudhanshu Saria’s gay love story LOEV’s world premiere happened at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia last November. SXSW (South By SouthWest film festival in Austin, Texas) marked the film’s North American premiere. LOEV also played at the Mexican Guadalajara film festival. Last we spoke to the filmmaker, it had already secured theatrical deals in some places around the world — Estonia, Germany, Poland, Italy and Taiwan. But how to sell, distribute and exhibit it in India, a market he considers more complicated than any other, was rattling Saria’s mind.
P.N. Ramachandra, a Film and Television Institute of India graduate, has made only three films in 25-odd years in the field. For him, feature films have not been about making money. “But I do ensure that I work in such a way that I recover the cost of making the film,” he said when we spoke to him about his latest film, Haal-E-Kangaal (The Bankrupts), a self-referential film that subtly cocks a snook at the intellectual insolvency of independent filmmaking in the country.
Ramachandra has found his own way out of the viewership problem. He himself chases the right audience for his small films. He has had independent group screenings organised for a defined target audience. For example, he has screened Haal-E-Kangaal at Manipal and Hyderabad Universities, and at local clubs in colleges in Ahmedabad.
According to him, the problem comes when you take indie movies to the same platform as, say, a hardcore commercial flick like Airlift . “You end up spending your own money on publicity and have just three-four days to recover money before the next blockbuster hits the theatres,” he says. Such a release is just for the heck of it, achieves little other than the satisfaction of seeing your film play on the big screen. The situation is worse for short films.
A way out
But the most viable way out for most other independent filmmakers seems to be the digital zone. So you have filmmaker Megha Ramaswamy hoping to create a platform for socially relevant films with her latest short about Down Syndrome called A Heartwarming Video about Parenting . She intends initiating a series of videos on social issues under a platform called Cause Effect, a joint initiative between Ramaswamy, Priyanka Bose and Vikrant Jauhari. The platform is open to young, new filmmakers with similar ideas.
In fact, everyday a new press release on a new digital platform finds its way into a journalist’s inbox. How many taste success and how far do they go? Or will they be around only until another new technology takes over? Meanwhile, Humaramovie, a digital content studio, has launched Shor Se Shuruaat under which an anthology of eight short films based on the theme of noise will be directed by chosen filmmakers under the stewardship of renowned filmmakers Shyam Benegal, Imtiaz Ali, Rajkumar Hirani, Mira Nair, Zoya Akhtar, Sriram Raghavan, Nagesh Kukunoor and Homi Adajania. These will be compiled to make a feature that will have a theatrical release later this year. Shuruaat isn’t just about biggies of the Indian film industry being mentors; it will provide a distribution platform across theatres, both satellite and digital — what every indie filmmaker craves for.
namrata.joshi@thehindu.co.in
