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Telling Tales
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MENAKA
JAYASANKAR
His first
documentary film, Rumtek, won a national and an international
award. His first feature film, New Delhi Times, had the awards
pouring in. Yet today, Ramesh Sharma claims that the corporate
demands of running a television company force him to choose
creative projects very carefully. And apparently he's succeeded
in walking the tightrope.
Not only has his Delhi-based TV company, Motion Picture Company
(India) Ltds (MPCL) gone public, he is returning to feature
productions again. For Sharma has recently tied up with Hungarian
film-maker Sandor Sara's Duna TV, to produce two films: on
explorer Alexander Csoma and artist Amrita Sher Gill.
Reminiscing
on New Delhi Times, this Communication Arts graduate from
Canada casually remarks: "Shashi (Kapoor) was a pal,
Om Puri and Sharmila joined along the way and Gulzar did the
script. I never expected it to be such a super success."
However, as he also made known, he was so disillusioned with
the market distribution of "good cinema", he decided
to instead channel his energy into the "great challenge
of television."
Beginning
with a small team he gradually built upon, Sharma now produces
serials on a variety of subjects like entertainment, current
affairs and information technology. MPCL was born in '89 and
soon foreign collaborations began to spring up too. "I'm
basically a communications person. Mediums may differ: features
dwell on narration and emotion, while documentaries concentrate
on uncovering the truth. But in the end, it's all about effective
communication," he explains, though he now cannot get
"hands-on" with everything: "I wanted to make
it a professional company, with strong technical and creative
teams and a strong board. For that we needed money and we
decided to go to the public."
Of course,
the two Indo-Hungarian productions will see him closely involved
in the making. While he's producing both, he's directing the
film on Alexander Csoma. A casual conversation with Sara,
in '98 (on how Sharma had found the explorer's grave in Darjeeling)
led to the film on this Hungarian hero.
Sharma
was fascinated by the tale of this scholar, who eventually
made his way to Tibet and was then used by a British spy for
information. But what also appealed to Sharma, was the chance
to visit Tibet. "I was born in that region, in Kalimpong,
and have often visited the border with my father," says
the man who also authored a book on Sikkim when he didn't
have the money to make a film on it. "It has such an
amazing culture: visually striking and emotionally resonant."
As for the equally adventurous Sher Gill (her mother and husband
were Hungarian and she spent many years there), Sharma says
of the Sara-directed venture: "She was a woman ahead
of her times yet nobody's made a film on her, apart from one
attempt by Kumar Shahni."
While
both films will be made in English, Hungarian and French,
the cast will also include British and American actors. As
finances and scripts are ready, shooting (both are being made
simultaneously) will begin around July-August and they should
be ready for release by early next year.
And, of
course, Sharma has no intentions of stopping there. Apart
from a variety of TV serials (including one with Om Puri for
Sony TV and another for TV Today on India Today's 25 years)
he's also planning to venture into the international animation
arena. "My creative passion is still rooted," he
insists, "But I am also determined to leave behind a
legacy of good corporate governance."
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