Producers tell their stories to eager film festival crowd

Panaji: A panel of producers provided insights into the challenge of making films in India and agreed it was driven more by passion than profit.

They were on stage at Kala Academy on the sixth day of the International Film Festival of India, now in its 54th edition. The session was moderated by trade analyst Komal Nahata.

Sunitha Tati, producer of Telugu films Oh! Baby and Courier Boy Kalyan, said it was common for producers to pay interest between 36% and 54% on money borrowed from financiers, but the situation had improved in recent years, with part of the funding being raised in equity.

“I believe in second chances,” she said, to a question on what guided her choice of scripts. “I am a cancer survivor and look for uplifting stories.”

Prithul Kumar, managing director, NFDC, said the need for a government-run organisation to fund films had come down with other avenues opening up. He urged filmmakers from across the world to make films in India, and explained the government was giving up to 40% of the investment back if its conditions about locations and hiring Indian crew were met. The details are on the Film Facilitation Office website.

Bengali producer Firdausul Hasan said government policies made it difficult for non-Bollywood films to cross borders. Although Bengali films have a ready audience in Bangladesh, the country tends to show more Bollywood than films from the Indian state with which it shares a language, the sixth most widely spoken in the world.

Shariq Patel, CEO of Zee Studios, answered a host of questions posed by young filmmakers and said small- and medium-budget films such as 12th Fail and Gadar 2 had raked in revenues for his company on an unprecedented scale.

Earlier in the afternoon, a panel of young filmmakers discussed how they got to make their debut films. Kannada was represented by Sagar Puranik, who made a short film and a feature film and won National awards for both. Towards the end of the session, when the panellists were asked about the one film they went back to frequently for inspiration, he named Rajkumar’s hit film Gandhada Gudi (1973).

Jasmeet K Reen described her journey from chartered accountancy to filmmaking through scriptwriting and advertising. Her debut film Darlings (2022), starring Alia Bhatt, got the highest global opening for a non-English film on Netflix.

Nikhil Mahajan, who won a National award for his debut film Godavari (2021), described himself as a “middle-class Marathi boy” who studied engineering and then switched to filmmaking. Signing up for a filmmaking course helped him get into direction without having to assist a seasoned hand first, he said.

Bengali filmmaker Rajdeep Paul said his industry was still trying to bridge art house and commerce, and agreed it was still looking for a 'Kantara moment.’

The short film Odh, about Goa’s receding beaches, was adjudged the best film in the Creative Minds of Tomorrow contest.