The Hunt is On

With an experimental virtual campaign,small-budget film The Blueberry Hunt is pushing its way through the mainstream audience.

The internet presence of filmmaker Anup Kurians new project,The Blueberry Hunt,is like a bag of goodies. Click on its Facebook page and a graphic novel catches your attention. Move over to its recently posted soundtracks and a funky OST with embedded dialogues emerges. The FB page also has an album of character sketches and the director (with a Blueberry Hunt pseudonym) personally engages in discussions with fans. The result of this unique marketing experiment is not surprising its been a little more than one month,and the Facebook page already boasts of over 18,000 views,4,000 likes,while the latest updates are getting an exceptional 20,000 views everyday. The songs,being marketed for free right now,have already crossed the 10,000 download mark.

Kottayam-based Kurian refuses to call his movie a niche project. He does not agree to tags such as experimental,film festival material or artistic. Its a story that anyone can relate to. I have just tried to tell my story in an unconventional manner, he says. But the effort to market this film is uniquely experimental,that much he agrees too. The Blueberry Hunt,Kurians second film,unfolds in the green deserted estate of Vagamon in Kerala. It centres around a reclusive colonel,played by Naseeruddin Shah,who grows a high-potency variant of marijuana the blueberry skunk as a last chance to earn money.

Kurians first film,Mansarovar,which won the Aravindan Puraskaram,the Gollapundi Srinivas National Prize and the Best Picture award at the International Film Festival of Mumbai in 2005,failed to create any mainstream buzz.

So he devised a unique strategy to promote his second. But with the marketing of

The Blueberry Hunt,Kurian feels he has hit the hammer right on the head. The film,which was ready six months ago,is slated to hit the screens in the first week of October and Kurian believes that this wait will help his small-budget film make the transition from an underground hit to a mainstream one.

The graphic novel has created a huge buzz. Inspired by the films story,two pages are posted online every three days. Readers are terribly hooked. Kurian is not worried about revealing the story in this manner.

Out of the two-hour film,one hour and 80 minutes will be up on the internet; only the climax will not be revealed. Theatrical release marks the end for most films but for mine,it will only be an extension, he says.

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The Blueberry Hunt has another first to its credit. Chill Om,an independent record label,has been signed up for a month-long,country-wide promotional tour starting later this month,besides producing an eight-track music album for the film. Two of those songs are currently available for free download. The hunt will only end once the film releases,because that is when the entire album will be available online.

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Naseeruddin Shah