About five years ago, Mohamed AK Jailani made the film Kelvikuri . Since then, it has been an endless wait to direct another movie. Muthuramalingam’s case was similar. He directed Snehavin Kadhalargal a year ago, and got ready for a long wait. That was when Jailani approached Muthu and broached the idea of a funding network that would help directors like them tap the fledgling idea of ‘crowd-funding’.
Thus was born moviefunding.in, a website that hopes to help filmmakers realise their directorial dreams. The first target was to generate about Rs. 2 crore for two films — Jailani’s next, Sound Camera Action , a meta film; and Muthu’s Roobachitira Maamarakiliye . They reached their target very soon, and that got the duo enthused about the viability of their idea. Muthu, a former journalist, says moviefunding.in will only support films where the script and director are the heroes. “We will try and ensure that no director has to ‘compromise’ on or reduce the intensity of his film, because it is not commercial enough. We have killed enough films by ‘forcefully inserting’ such scenes and songs,” he says.
Muthuramalingam says that Pawan Kumar’s Lucia and similar crowd-funded indie films in Hindi inspired them. But, crowd-funding also puts the onus of financial propriety on the company collecting the funds. “That’s why we are very strict about accounts and put up every detail of money spent on our website,” explains Muthuramalingam, “That’s the only way to earn investors’ trust. For instance, we are yet to start shooting. For our expenditure so far, we have not tapped into investor money.”
After these two films, Muthu and Jailani plan to discuss other ideas uploaded by filmmakers on the website and start collecting funds for those movies.
The website collects five per cent of the amount generated as processing fee. “Tamil cinema has lost so many filmmakers because there was no one to support them.
“Think of Rudhraiya who made Aval Appadithaan,” says Muthuramalingam. “Though he made a second film, he never got to create another such classic. Creators must be allowed a free rein without worrying about finances. Only then will we get to see good cinema.”
