20 February,2011 12:10 PM IST | | Yolande D'Mello
It's a heady fever. How else do you explain a bunch of young independent Indian filmmakers writing their own scripts, creating their own audiences, dodging permissions, deciding to self-fund, self-promote and sometimes self-medicate, all for the love of cinema? All they are asking is, "Will you watch?"
Sandeep Mohan is busy with the post-production for his film. Except, it's not a scenario you'd imagine. No fancy lab and qualified technicians here. The 36 year-old fillmaker shares his workstation with Amelie, his seven month-old daughter who has been bawling so loud, he's convinced she's no fan. The Vikhroli resident is lending a final touch to his first feature film, Love, Wrinkle-free that's set to release in May.
Filmmaker Sandeep Mohan uses guerrilla filming techniques, frequently
shooting without permissions and a digital camera. "Anything to get the
best shot," says Mohan, "Though more often than not it's my cameraman
who has to climb the tree." Pic/sayed sameer abedi
Mohan wasn't lucky with funds. He got by with a little help from friends. A website that carried a jist of the plot and a plea to investors to support his dream, got him contributions starting as low as Rs 1,000. A sum greater than Rs 25,000 or 500 US dollars would get you an on-the-set visit and maybe even a debut role. "Indians have this filmi keeda; they want to be a part of a film experience even if in a small way," he says.
Mohan was able to raise Rs 40 lakh -- that's half his production cost -- through the website. Of course, he tried the traditional route first. After working as an advertising copywriter and assisting Bollywood biggie director Sanjay Leela Bhansali on a couple of films, he pitched the script to producers. "I learned a lot but I also felt lost. Every producer I met wanted me to take a backseat in my own film. I wasn't going to. So, I decided to do it alone."
A small budget meant growing suddenly stingy. "Indie films work on goodwill and favours," smiles Mohan, who shot at a friend's house in Goa, and at a chapel in an effort to bypass long and expensive permissions he would have had to seek for a church scene.
Shot in Goa, Love, Wrinkle-free ended up including several locals in the cast who Mohan "owed favours to". "It adds more authentic Goan flavour, anyway, I think."
From finding funds in unlikely places to using impromptu methods of cinematography, there's nothing normal about the way a bunch of indie filmmakers are making movies.
Making a film about making a film
Twenty seven year old Srinivas Sunderrajan made his first full-length film, The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project with his savings of Rs 40,000 in 40 days. "When I approached producers for funding, they wanted someone with 15 years of experience as assistant to a big director. I didn't even have a stubble. And then they claim they want to encourage young minds," the bass guitarist with Mumbai band Scribe scoffs.
The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project is a film about making a film, and the headache of shooting in India. Although he had hoped to take it to the Sundance Film Festival, delays marred his plans. Guerrilla filming methods demanded that the cast and crew, made up largely of friends and fellow students from KC College, shoot in the dead of the night.
The disappointing wait crept into the script, and ended up influencing the plot. Sunderrajan shot all over Mumbai without procuring any permissions from government agencies simply because he couldn't afford them. "A censor certificate alone costs Rs 35 lakh," says the filmmaker who decided to include a shady character dressed like a government official who spies on protagonist Kartik Krishnan.
"Right now, there isn't a route available to independent filmmakers, so we are responsible for directing, marketing and distributing the film," says Sunderrajan who doesn't want indie films to be restricted to a film festival audience. He plans to launch a DVD and an official online torrent release simultaneously so that viewers can choose to download the film if they wish. "Visibility is all I want. Even if they end up saying, 'Arre, picture dekha par kuch samajh nahin aaya (I saw the film but didn't understand a thing)'."u00a0
No one can watch this one
And that makes Sunderrajan different from Qaushiq Mukherjee, a Kolkata-based filmmaker who has wrapped up work on a film that may never see an Indian release. Gandu (Loser) is a film by Overdose, a company owned by Mukherjee, who prefers it if you call him simply 'Q'.
The story is of a wannabe rapper who meets a rickshawala, goes on a trip of angry music, mindless conversation and narcotics. The film might seem like one with a social message, but Q pleads, "There is no message in the film. It is simply an experience."
Gandu lays on a thick layer of counter culture that protests capitalistic force in society and its pawn -- the media that distracts us from issues that are of real significance.
Gandu screens risque scenes with full-frontal nude shots, abuse and pornography that makes the chance of finding a screening in India impossible. Right now, the film cannot be screened even at a film festival without a censor certificate.
But the point is to make a statement anyway. "Reticence is not the fault of an individual. It is a collective psychosis forced by a system that is motivated by money and power. Shock is perhaps the only answer of this century."
Currently in Germany for the Berlin Film Festival where he screened Gandu, Q says the audience was "shocked, stunned and stirred. We have blogs and radio broadcasts here that are saying it's the film to watch out for in Panorama."
Gandu has already been screened at Yale University, Rhode Island University, the South Asian International Film Festival in New York, and the Slamdance Film Festival in Utah and Berlinale.
Q says it is due to premiere at the Ujaan Festival for the Sunderbans in Kolkata this March, but is currently tangled in a web of redtape, with the Censor Board taking a final call.
Although Q used publicity tools that most independent filmmakers turn to, including Facebook and Twitter, Gandu took on a cult status of its own, becoming a widely discussed project across global film circles. While film festivals offer a platform to young filmmakers, the audience tends to be an art house crowd, alienating aam janta.
Writer and filmmaker Paromita Vohra says, "The next five years will see the scene changing and we can expect filmmakers to form a collective that will produce independent films and make them available to a larger audience."u00a0
And since optimism is perhaps more crucial to independent moviemaking than a film school degree, Q is on the right track when he says, "I believe that soon there will appear young filmmakers who will challenge the system. It's going to be an exciting time ahead. I can feel the energy."
The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Projectu00a0
Srinivas Sunderrajan
Shot on a low budget with a flexible script, semi-professional actors and with a digital camera, the film's plot revolves around the small joys and big difficulties of making a film. Sunderrajan made The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project on a budget of Rs 40,000, an amount he says he had saved up.
You Don't Belong
Spandan Banerjee
You Don't Belong is the latest documentary by Overdose Films. It follows a traditional folk song around the world as it is expressed by poets, singers and musicians. "Art is the main character in the film," says Delhi-based Banerjee who has seen a shift in the way documentaries have been viewed over the last decade. "Earlier, they were misunderstood as serious films that take up a cause. The truth is, docus can be entertaining too."
Gandu
Qaushiq Mukherjee
Kolkata-based Qaushiq Mukherjee is more popular as Q.u00a0 His film is yet to receive permissions to be screened in India. Meanwhile, audiences at the Berlin Film Festival that closes today, loved the bold message of the counter-culture film.
Your guide to our best indie fare pick from 2010
Trunk Call (India)
Geeta and Avinash Singh tell a tale of discovery and friendship when a strange relationship develops between two boys and five elephants.
Journey to Nagaland (India)
Aditi Chitre makes an animation film on a young girl who is lead to a distant land by the force of her visions and her mother's spirit to discover her roots.
Un homme qui crie/A Screaming Man (France)
Mahamat Saleh Haroun narrates the story of a former central African swimming champion, now reduced to a security guard at the swimming pool of an expensive hotel.
Lebanon (Israel)
Samuel Maoz depicts the view from the inside of a tank through the gunsight and the journey of four Israeli soldiers as they are sent to clear a Lebanese area of hostile fighters.
Deep in the Clouds (China)
The story starts in Lisu village near the border of Tibet and Burma. Di Alu is in love with Ji Ni, and is banned from pursuing her by Lisu tradition. Forced to wed to settle a family dispute, she disappears into a foggy mountain on her wedding day. What will become of her?
