Child’s play

And why not? The team that comprises Paranjpye and Chaudhari have plenty of experience and tenacity between them, considering the latter is a National Award-winning director who has worked with big names such as Rajshri Productions, while Paranjpye, of course, hardly needs any introduction. "The only language that cinema has, is that it should be understood by all. It could be in Bengali or Tamil or in any other language. Its greatness lies in the fact that it can be understood by all. Coming to the films that we finance or direct, they have pure entertainment value. We don’t believe in preaching and sermonizing or giving lofty statements and messages to kids, because they would get boring. Of course, indirectly, we do talk about relationships and other positive things, but not in a forced manner," he says all in one breath.

Another evident change is in the attitude, that is the thirst to go commercial. What the CFSI has finally realised is that their success lies in showing their films to the maximum number of people. Only by reaching out to a larger audience will the organization increase their profits as well as motivate directors to make more movies. "In the past, the common practice was to show the film once a week at perhaps two theaters in the city, which wasn’t enough. Not only did it result in poor collections, but it also reached out to a sparse number of people," says the 59-year old CEO. That trend seems to be changing with the release of Halo, which ran at Eros and Gossip for longer than usual. What they have also become conscious of, is the importance of film festivals around the country, so that people, particularly children, can appreciate cinema in a better way. Besides the Children’s International Film Festival that takes place in Hyderabad every alternate year, CFSI has on its cards, similar eventsslated in Madhya Pradesh and Tripura for later this year. And with films being regularly shown on sattelite channels such as Sahara, Star and Zee, the dream of reaching the maximum number of children does not seem far away.