A British screenwriter,Sally Porter,on why releasing movies over the Internet will become the norm When British writer-director Sally Porter hit a road block while writing her script for Rage,a film on people in the fashion industry,she received inspiration from the unlikeliest source--the Internet. Somebody posted a comment on my site about a particular film and voila,I filled the loopholes in my own script, says Potter,60,currently in Mumbai where she is part of a visiting delegation of filmmakers from the UK Film Council. Potters film Rage which released in the UK last year and was shot by her has made more news for its unlikely distribution strategy. It is the first film ever,to be released on mobile phone and the Internet,free of cost. There is a glorious symmetry in the content of the film and its distribution,since the film is shown from the perspective of a school boy who is a frequent writer on the blogosphere, explains Potter who has not earned a single penny from the film yet. I want to embrace the new technology and take full advantage of it, she says referring to the ease with which mobile phones are making filmmakers out of ordinary people. Anybody can become a filmmaker nowadays and that is the beauty of it. There is nothing wrong with that. Shot within a modest budget of $1 million in a span of 28 days,the film has already earned the 2009 Golden Bear nomination at the Berlin Film Festival and is being screened in India as part of the UK Film Festival in three cities. The film portrays Jude Law as a transvestite model,Judi Dench as a powerful fashion editor and Steve Buscemi as a war photographer whos switched to paparazzi shots. But even though the characters are connected to fashion,Potter argues her film is not entirely about the fashion world. Fashion is something we are exposed to and catwalks are something everyone knows. The only way to know the fashion world is not to show it, says Potter who was nominated for an Oscar in 1992 for Orlando . Her film,minus special effects,locations and sets,still manages to captivate the viewer,simply because of powerful performances in a unique interview format by the main characters. I wanted to slowly peel off the layers of people in the fashion world, says Potter,who frequented many fashion weeks in New York over the past decade for her research. A fan of Satyajit Ray and Kamal Amrohis Pakeezah Potter says she relates to Bollywood,mostly. Cinema is a world medium and Bollywood is impossible to ignore," she signs off.
