Take two

Joining Sharma in a second venture this year are other filmmakers who,like him,will be under the critics’ scanner. Zoya Akhtar’s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,Nishikant Kamat’s action-packed Force,Sagar Ballary’s children’s film Kaccha Limboo,Bhavna Talwar’s slice-of-life comedy Happi,and Reema Kagti’s untitled film with Aamir Khan in the lead will have to surpass expectations and emerge successful the second time around.

With their debut films,filmmakers want to get their footing right in the industry and learn the ropes. It is during the second project that external pressures like producing a good movie and audience expectations factor in. “You are constantly thinking of bettering your previous attempt,” says Ballary,whose Kachcha Limboo releases today. After Bheja Fry became a hit,Ballary expected to get going in the industry without further delays. “But the recession,elections,swine flu and industry strike totally threw things off gear,” he rues. The filmmaker’s patience has finally paid off and he is now awaiting Judgement Day. Kamat,on the other hand,went backpacking for one-and-a-half years after his first film Mumbai Meri Jaan’s release. “I wanted to cut off from the world,so that I could start afresh on my second film.”

Along with the performance pressure comes the effort of fighting against being typecast. “As filmmakers,we are constantly looking at working in different genres with each of our films. “After Bheja Fry’s success,I was sure about trying out a genre which was not comedy,” Ballary recounts. Kamat adds that after a rather realistic Mumbai Meri Jaan,Force offered him a chance to play around with larger-than-life characters. Similarly,Akhtar’s road adventure movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara will be quite a contrast from an insider’s look at the film industry in her debut Luck By Chance. Her close friend Kagti too has graduated from comedy to thriller.

However,elements from the previous ‘successful debut’ often do seep into attempts of these filmmakers,a reality attributed to having developed comfort zones. While Sharma and Bhavna Talwar are repeating their star cast of Anushka Sharma-Ranveer Singh and Pankaj Kapur respectively in their second,Akhtar has on board her “lucky mascots” Farhan Akhtar and Hrithik Roshan. A successful debut,however,offers one a huge advantage which filmmakers feel helps balance off the pressures — they also open doors for your second project. “Actors are more receptive to you and producers are willing to hear you out,” points out Ballary. For Kamat,it is the respect he has earned that has been the biggest perk of success. “Everything around me has changed. My actors and technicians respect my views. They trust my judgement on various aspects of filmmaking,” he smiles. And then there is the advantage of experience. Filmmakers always claim to emerge wiser after their debut. As second-time director Raj Kumar Gupta points out. “Every time I watch Aamir,I used to feel I could have shot a particular scene in a different manner. With No One Killed Jessica,I made sure I did that.”