Now Presenting…

Dekh India Circus eventually featured actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Jethu and has,since,travelled to and won accolades at several international film festivals. The film,however,still awaits an India release owing to the lack of a distributor. When Ali came to know about it,he decided to come on board as a “presenter”. “It is a wonderful film but needs to reach out to the audience,which is not happening. If attaching my name can help,I will be more than happy to do so,” says Ali.

Lack of insecurity is perhaps one of the greatest virtues of Hindi cinema’s young,new filmmakers. Not only do they function as colleagues,appreciating and critiquing one another’s work,but also give other newcomers a chance to tell their own stories. In situations where they believe in a film but cannot come on board as a producer,they have devised a way to support it by “presenting” it.

Much like Ali,Kiran Rao has taken it upon herself to ensure that Anand Gandhi’s award-winning bilingual Ship of Theseus gets a theatrical release. “When I watched the film at a festival in the city,I felt it is one of the most significant works to have come out of India in recent times. Since the film was already made,I could not have produced it. But I was very keen to be attached to the project,” says Rao. Anurag Kashyap has gone a step ahead to present not a fiction feature film but Abhay Kumar’s experimental documentary,Placebo.

While their role would chiefly revolve around lending a film credibility and promoting it among the mass audience,the extent of involvement is the presenter’s personal choice. “Ali came on board also as an advisor. He suggests marketing strategies and helps us meet with prospective distributors,apart from travelling with the film to festivals whenever his schedule permits,” says Hadawale.

Rao’s involvement is also creative in terms of promotion. She and the members of Aamir Khan Productions have been working on alternative options for the film’s posters,planning extensive online marketing strategies and researching the market to find out the cities where the film will be received well if released. Kashyap,who has come on board even as Placebo is being made,has lent his technical expertise to the film. “Having his name attached to the project also helped us get crowd-funding for Placebo. Besides,he knows the festival circuit well and we can expect his guidance and recommendation in that department once the film is ready,” Kumar says.

To have such credible names attached makes a film sound promising at the outset. But does it have the impact that is expected of the collaboration? Gandhi is lucky that Rao’s involvement — which also implies the blessings of her actor-filmmaker husband Aamir Khan — has got Ship of Theseus a distributor in UTV. The production house came on board as much to be attached to an illustrious project as for their long-time association with Khan. “At least,we are providing viewers an option to watch different kind of cinema,” says Gandhi.

The makers of Dekh India Circus,however,have shown the film to several industry biggies but still struggle to find a keen distributor “although Ali’s efforts to find one are on”.

Eventually,how will the journey of each of these films pan out,remains to be seen.