Indie-features get a platform

A still from the film Love Wrinkle Free

By Priyanka Bhadani

After haggling with the Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for a long time, in the May of 2012, indie film-maker Sandeep Mohan could finally manage a theatrical release for his first feature, a slice-of-life comedy, Love Wrinkle Free produced on a shoestring budget of Rs.85 lakhs at PVR Director’s Rare, however, not without an A-certificate.
Later, Sandeep realised that the certification would forbid the film’s satellite screening and that’s exactly what happened. The film was allowed for satellite screening and given an U/A certificate with 30-cuts. However, with the independent film tag and not-very-popular stars, the film wasn’t bought even for satellite screening till the time Pepsi MTV Indies and film club Shamiana came into the picture recently.
Now, Love Wrinkle Free along with other indiefilms like He Who Chased The Train will be screened on MTV Indies on a weekly basis from the last week of July. It is an initiative from the channel that was launched earlier this year to give a platform to indie artistes across genres like music, films and comedy.
Sandeep Mohan, who has now made another film, Hola Venky in an even smaller budget (Rs.10 lakhs) as he couldn’t recover the cost of his first feature, considers it to be a good enough initiative to give a boost to the indie film movement. “An initiative like this hasn’t been taken before on TV except for the sporadic screening of few indie/ documentary films on Doordarshan and few other niche channels,” says the film-maker after spending a decent time to recall if he has ever come across a space for indie films on TV.
A joint effort from Shamiana and Indies, it would reach out to indie film-makers to get their features (of 60 to 90 minutes duration) screened on MTV Indies.
Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head – MTV at Viacom 18 Media Private Limited, is following the theory that the non-mainstream of five years ago is “cool” in the present time. “Similarly, what is considered unconventional today will be lapped up by audiences in the time to come. However, the challenge is to make this content accessible to the audience, which we are trying to do by reaching out to 20 million homes with our channel,” remarks Swamy.
“Shamiana is curating the slot for the channel. We will reach out to the indie community across the country,” informs Cyrus Dastur, founder, Shamiana, who says that it has been a long struggle for the indie film-makers to find their space. “It’s still a struggle, but things have gotten marginally better, especially with platforms and opportunities like MTV Indies coming up. The audiences are warming up to see good indie cinema but it’s not easy yet, neither to raise money nor to get films released. We still have a long way to go,” he says.
For the market and the audience to open up to independent films and initiatives like these, experts believe, it is important to ensure quality.
Shailesh Kapoor, CEO Ormax Media that conducts research on such new initiatives of television on a regular basis, says that a lot of trash is also made in the name of independent films. “The first thing in order to attract viewers is to make sure that the content is watchable, both from the production point of view and casting point of view. When I say casting, it doesn’t have to be stars but actors who justify the roles in the movie,” says Kapoor as he mentions about the movies on UTV World Movies that despite of being in different languages like Korean, Japanese etc, got a decent viewership because of selective and quality content.
Swamy agrees and says that since the beginning Indies has believed in “quality over quantity”. “We are hand-picking films that would be interesting to young people so that we form a connect and create a market by raising interest,” he says and adds that the channel has got good response from the market till now.
While the initiative is lauded, Sandeep doesn’t look at it as a complete solution, especially because indie film-makers take up topic that are unconventional and their films most often ought to have scenes that would offend the Censor Board. “For our struggles to reduce, there has to be a reform in the rules of CBFC. Otherwise, even after such platforms, our films will reach the audience in an incomplete manner,” he says.
For the time being however, it’s surely a huge step ahead for film-makers as getting a film screened on a TV channel means reaching out to a really large sum of people. “For a film-maker, gratification is the biggest high and he is sure to get that from this initiative. And to add to it, MTV Indies is paying some money to acquire the films so it surely is a win-win situation for the film-maker!” concludes Cyrus.