Producer Siddharth Roy Kapur has seen the Mumbai Film Festival evolve in the last three years, ever since he joined the board of trustees. He brought on to the table his years of experience as a producer, a position that keeps him busy outside of the festival. The 43-year-old’s Roy Kapur Films (RKF) recently announced an association with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., wherein his production company will curate, develop, commission and creatively produce original digital video content for the Jio platform. With his hands clearly full, we catch up with him for a tête-à-tête on his relationship with film festivals around the world.
Are you a festival junkie?
Not as much as I would like to be, honestly. Because of one’s workload, one hasn’t done as much film festival junking as one would’ve liked, but whenever I go to Cannes, Berlin or Venice for our films, I’ve tried to catch some other movies along with that. I can’t say I’m one of those people who’ve gone to film festivals purely to enjoy movies. It has always been on some work. There’s a screening of our films at the market, and as a pleasant by-product of that I’ve managed to watch some films.
Which festivals do you attend every year?
MAMI of course because one is on the board of trustees, so MAMI is a film festival that one does attend. Otherwise it’s just where our movies get shown. So there’s always an agenda.
Any favourite festivals?
I enjoy [Festival de] Cannes, purely because of the history and the tradition. I enjoy it for the heritage of the festival, and being there is a big high. Venice [International Film Festival] is beautiful because it is just a beautiful city to go to, so that festival has its own charm. I enjoy [the] Berlin [International Film Festival] as well. That happens in February when it is nice and cold and you’re dying to get into a heated cinema and watch a film. So every festival has its own unique charm.
Which was the first festival you attended and what do you remember of it?
It would probably be Cannes. It was overwhelming because when you’re in the business of cinema, and you go to a festival and market like that, you just get the sense of heritage and the range of great cinema from around the world that’s on offer, which you don’t even hear about. I remember the first time I went there, there was a Woody Allen premiere happening. He was there and he is one of my favourite filmmakers. I think it was Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), and I got a chance to attend it all tuxed out (sic).
Any talent that you’ve discovered at film festivals?
We haven’t discovered talent at festivals. In India we are at a stage where it’s more inside out than outside in. We’re taking our movies to festivals and hoping that our talents get discovered and our movies get discovered. We have backed movies that are festival friendly like Dev.D (2009), Kai Po Che! (2013) and Shahid (2012). It was much more about getting our talent to be discovered there by people who want to distribute these movies elsewhere, rather than discovering talent.
When was the first time you took your film to a festival?
It was Dev.D in Venice. It got a superb reception and Kai Po Che! at Berlin. That was the second time.
What your association with MAMI been like?
MAMI has been a place where one has attended a few movies in the past. But when I got a call from Anupama [Chopra] to be a part of the board of trustees, and that she was revamping the festival, I agreed right at the word go. She wanted to do something for Indian cinema and give Mumbai a chance to have a world-class festival. So my association goes back to three years when she invited me to be a part of the festival.
How can MAMI get better?
It’s now question of consolidating everything we’ve done and scaling it up. What I’m happy about is the year long program MAMI is running now, so it’s not going anywhere. Earlier it used to be that one time of the year MAMI happened and then everyone went into hibernation. Now it’s the question of scaling it up and getting more filmmakers and even better movies. The foundation is well set.
Any films that you are looking forward to this year?
I haven’t looked at the line-up well but I am dying to see Anurag’s [Kashyap] Mukkabaaz. A lot of international films, I haven’t even heard of so I must look into it.
Published - October 11, 2017 10:19 pm IST
