‘It’s time for Asian Oscars’

Festival. The reason for his new-found connection with social media could be traced to Qyuki,the new digital company that he has launched along with music maestro AR Rahman. As Kapoor puts it,“the digital media venture is still in the alpha phase” and will be operational from October,but people can connect only by invitation.

There is,in the meantime,an active Facebook page for Qyuki. “Rahman and I go way back,and are good friends,and we both agree that there is a large chunk of our population trapped and locked at the bottom of the pyramid,and there lies immense talent,innovation,entrepreneurship and imagination which is untapped and wasted. We got together and started Qyuki a year ago,to bring these people up,to provide them a platform to grow,” explained Kapoor. He claimed that Qyuki will provide creative content creators with an online platform where they can showcase their work,collaborate with others and discover new opportunities to share their work with the world. If you have a song,someone will help score music and another one will help in finding a market for the same. Same goes for other art forms. No,it is not Facebook or YouTube,Kapoor added. It is a collaborative platform for music and films,to begin with.

Casting his ‘net’ wide,Kapoor strongly believes that the internet can achieve another feat — to motivate and mobilise India’s youth to take responsibility for saving the most important natural resource — water. “I have been working on it for long now — researching,writing and understanding the controversies it will create. The first question is who does this water belong to? Privatisation and urbanisation have reduced this country to a land-grabbing nation,” he rued.

Out of the “Hollywood and Oscar phase”,Kapoor added that if he made a film now,it has to carry weight and value,and go beyond being just a good film.

His contention is that Indian cinema has become inert. “Cinema has the inherent quality of rebellion,to absorb and adapt,but somewhere down the line,these assets have become our liability and we have stopped taking financial and creative risks,” he said. And as he put it,there’s a need for “Asian Oscars”,for diverse marketing strategies,for revising ticket prices and entertainment tax,for telling bigger and relevant stories,for promoting regional cinema and its rawness,for opening minds and relaxing censors. “China is now the biggest film industry in the world because it adds a new theatre everyday,because it is improving its infrastructure and is conquering the world culturally too,” added Kapoor.

But he is hopeful that the new wave will bring change. “New directors are restless and their creative urge is becoming greater,” concluded Kapoor.

Osian’s Online

When Osian’s-Cinefan director Neville Tuli first heard about the worldwide phenomena called Facebook and Twitter,he waved it aside dismissively as “something for kids.” However,as it rises from its ashes,after a two year ‘sabbatical’,Osian’s-Cinefan 2012 does so by making full use of the social networking sites. “I saw our Facebook page yesterday and I was amazed,” said Tuli,speaking at the opening ceremony,adding,“It’s something that can’t be ignored.” The entry of Osian’s into Facebook and Twitter also spells out another important thing — that the festival,unlike in previous years,is consciously trying to reach out to a younger generation. Now if that’s something you ‘like’ or want to ‘follow’,visit http://www.facebook.com/12thOsiansCinefanFilmFestival or twitter.com/Osiancinefan12