Mahuaa,a new platform for filmmakers

Bhattasaly informed that Mahuaa Media Pvt. Ltd. plans to produce 20 to 25 films of different genres within the coming year. Its first feature film,Ray,directed by filmmaker Riingo and starring Saswata Chatterjee,has already been aired on Mahuaa Bangla on July 25 on its Sunday 7 pm slot which is now the regular feature film time.

Since Mahuaa Media Pvt Ltd is an associate concern of Century Communications Limited promoted by Prabhodh Kumar Tiwari,Chairman and Managing Director,it is easy for us to give our filmmakers good budgets and full artistic freedom to explore because CCS runs a state-of-the-art post-production and VFX studio under the name of Pixion that offers one-stop solution for end-to-end digital post production. We also run the sales arm of CCL brands under the name of Pearl Media that provides complete selling solutions across platforms to various broadcasting networks, informed Bhattasaly.

As far as its Bengali feature films go,the filmmakers chorused that the sky was the limit for them as Mahuaa Media has opened up a completely different and free world for them to work within. Anjan Dutt said that his first work,9 Miles,starring Churni Ganguly,himself and another actor,was about to be telecast on the Sunday slot. It is a thriller in which I play a psychiatrist treating my own wife and taking her off to a hill-station as part of the treatment. I am happy about these feature film projects because it will draw upon the tremendous pool of acting talent Bengali television has and the lack of opportunity the actors are given on the big screen.

Sudipta Acharya echoed this as he told the media that his film Helpline,dealt with a telephone-counselling service for disturbed and suicidal people. A newly- appointed counsellor fails to counsel her first telephone-in help-seeker and suffers so much due to her failure and the tragic consequences thereof that she perhaps needs counselling herself. I am grateful to Mahuaa Media Pvt Ltd because this is my first feature film and this will stop me knocking at producers doors in vain waiting for someone to back my project, he said.

Anjan Das,noted maker of films like Saanjbaatir Roopkathara and Jara Brishtitey Bhijechhilo,said that working with Mahuaa Media had effectively wiped out the mental block he had about making digital films firstly because I am not familiar with this technology and secondly when producers have approached me with projects for making films on digital format,all they were interested in was in streamlining the budget and quality was of no concern. Mahuaa Media has given all of us a free hand and budget is no constraint,so we can make the kind of films we want and with the infrastructural support we can get in terms of post-production work,distribution and marketing. We can concentrate on our creative potential to give more to the actual business of filmmaking and less on these business details, he added.

Subhrajit Mitra,whose first feature Mon Amour Shesher Kobita Revisited,was an experimental film with lots of inputs drawn from Tagore,is making a series of adolescent thrillers adapted from Sunil Gangopadhyays famous Kaka Babu detective series. Kamlesh Kunti Tiwari,who won an Award at the Los Angeles International Film Festival for the Best Script is making his first feature film under the Mahuaa Media banner. Partho Ray has directed Rik,titled after the little boy who is the protagonist of his film about how parents pressurise their children to get the highest grades and drive them to delinquent behaviour. According to Prabodh Tiwari,the Bengali film industry is a market comprising approximately Rs.150 crore and we at Mahuaa see it becoming a major player in this market.