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Hema
Malini comes to Kolkata quite often. However, recently she visited
the city of joy for the first time in her official capacity as chairperson
of the newly constructed board of the National Film Development
Corporation of India. She was in Kolkatta for the muhurat of an
NFDC-financed Bengali film, Hemanter Paakhi. The film marks the
debut of Urmi Chakravarty as director. On the occasion Hema Malini
met with the press in a city hotel. Excerpts from an interview:
What
does it feel coming to Kolkata in a different avatar?
 I’m
delighted and comparatively more relaxed now than when I was here
for a stage show with my group. It was a novel experience for me
to be present at the muhurat of a film I am not acting in. It was
a responsibility of a different kind and gave me the opportunity
of meeting up with Tanushree Shankar, a dancer herself, who stars
in the film.
Are you familiar with the script of Hemanter Paakhi?
Yes, I read the script after it was shortlisted from the 40 scripts
submitted to the NFDC. I read all the scripts that have been approved
of by our scripting panel at the regional level. Hemanter Paakhi
(Winter Bird) is based on a novel by Suchitra Bhattacharya. She
is a popular name among contemporary Bengali writers of fiction,
I hear. The story is about a woman whose creative writing talent
is buried under the pressures of being a housewife and mother. Then,
one fine day, she is inspired to pick up her pen again. How her
husband and two sons react to this new dimension of her persona
and how she herself responds to their reaction forms the conflict
in the film. I liked the story very much.
What other scripts has the NFDC cleared recently?
We have recently cleared six new scripts for feature films. These
are Hemanter Pakhi (Bengali), Teeladaanam (Telugu) to be directed
by K.N.T. Shastry, Vaastu Purush (Marathi) by Sumitra Bhave and
Sunil Sukhtankar, Maguni Ki Bailgadi (Oriya) by Prafulla Mohanty,
Bub (Kashmiri) by Jyoti Swarup and Jameela (Tamil) by Ponnvannan.
We are very happy about the Kashmiri film. We have also finally
given clearance to Satarupa Sanyal’s film, which is already
on the floors. It is called Atotaayi (Assasin.). Let me add that
quite a few of the directors are making their directorial debut
with us. We ensure their capability to deliver the goods from their
technical crew and from the professional finish of the script that
they have submitted. One of the directors, K.N.T. Shastry, has Sunny
Joseph as his cameraman. Which means he has the right technical
infra-structure to make the film.
Tell
us about the NFDC’s film export policy for the near future?
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"we
do not go with the dichotomous division between “art” films
and “commercial” films. Art films too, need an audience so basically,
they too, have a commercial purpose. Our cause is for good films.
Period"
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The NFDC has
identified two kinds of export markets for Indian films. One is
the traditional markets which means countries with a sizable Indian
population where Indian films will not want for an audience. The
other is the non-traditional market, which covers countries that
do not boast of a large NRI population. We have decided to mainly
target the non-traditional foreign markets for Indian films. To
explore this avenue, we had set up an Indian pavilion at the Cannes
Film Festival this year. Our aim was to negotiate with buyers from
across the globe. The Film Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, has expressed
its intention to buy prints of 24 Indian films. We are still in
the process of shortlisting these 24 films. We recently sold Nabyendu
Chatterjee’s Mansur Mian-r Ghoda to Bangladesh and are planning
to get the film dubbed in Hindi for a larger distribution to countries
with a sizable Hindi-speaking population. We are also planning a
Bengali film festival in North America. Japan and Korea have expressed
an interest in Indian films. We recently sold 25 films to Star Gold.
But when it comes down to sheer demand-and-supply, I must say that
Pather Panchali, the first from Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy,
is our best bet so far as our sales in foreign markets go. Richard
Attenborough’s Gandhi and Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome also
have a very good international demand. But no film can beat Pather
Panchali. Why, in July alone we finalised three deals for the film.
We recently sold Avtar Kaul’s 27 Down too for a very good price
abroad. I agree that NFDC has gone through some bad patches in the
past, but things today are looking up. Portugal and Spain are two
non-traditional markets that we hope to explore in the near future.
I’m an incorrigible optimist. I wish we could take dupe negatives
of films, sub-title them and take out 100 prints to be sold abroad.
I do agree that there is bound to be some amount of generation loss
in terms of projection quality, but it is better than nothing. Sub-titling
is a must because second and third generation Indians living abroad
do not know their mother-tongue. So, if we are to sell a Tamil film
say in the USA, we must get it sub-titled in English because a large
slice of the younger generation of Tamilians simply cannot speak
or understand Tamil.
How did you respond to the Shanghai International Film Festival?
It was my first international film festival after I became chairpersons
of the NFDC. Our film, Dattak, directed by Gulbahar Singh, was entered
in the competition section. It did not win any award but the audience
response was unbelievable! I saw the Chinese audience watching the
film with tears streaming down their cheeks. Again, it was a totally
new experience for me.
We hear that NFDC is reviving their defunct quarterly publication,
Cinema In India. Is this true?
Of course it is true. The first issue with an August deadline will
reach your hands any time now. Deepa Gahlot has been appointed full-time
editor of the quarterly journal. We hope to enlarge our visibility
in India and in the international market with this publication.
We are inviting inputs from regional cinema, both from filmmakers
and from journalists.
What other changes have you planned for the NFDC?
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On
18 August at Regent Hotel, Mumbai, Hema Malini, chairperson,
NFDC released the first issue of Cinema In India, a quarterly
published by National Film Development Corporation Ltd. Director
Finance B.B. Mukherjee, editor Deepa Gehlot, filmmaker Kiran
Shantaram, Sudhir Nandgaonkar, and managing director Deepankar
Mukhopadhyay were present at the occasion.
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We have already
begun to implement some changes. The scripting committee for instance,
has been changed completely. The regional script panels are also
going in for a complete revamp. We plan to finance two to three
full-length feature films every year on a modest budget of Rs.35
to Rs.40 lakh. We are giving them a time-bound programme of six
months to complete the film and readied for screening. For every
two or three of such modest-budget films, we plan to finance one
big-budget film with a budget of under Rs 1 crore. We might give
the go-ahead to co-producing with private producers in the future.
We are also exploring all the avenues of tele-marketing films within
India. Our budget for the current year is Rs.4.15 crore.
What
about the distribution and exhibition network?
What about it? Nothing much at this point of time, I admit. We plan
to take it up at a later stage because we do agree that without
a proper distribution and exhibition network, good films are not
likely to find an audience in our country. NFDC did give it a try
in te past. For some reason it did not work beyond a point of time.
There is no reason however to believe that it will not work in the
future too. But as of now, we have our hands full of export plans,
plans to hold festivals abroad and our involvement in the financing
of good and meaningful films. Please note that we do not go with
the dichotomous division between “art” films and “commercial”
films. Art films too, need an audience so basically, they too, have
a commercial purpose. Our cause is for good films. Period. Films
that will find an audience across the world, including in India.
When
you first learnt that you were chosen to chair the largest film
financing organization in the country, what was your reaction?
I was pleasantly surprised, of course. The appointment
came from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and it made
me really proud. It took me some time to understand what it was
all about since I had never been the head of a government-based,
bureaucratic organization before. But my peers within the organization,
Dipankar Mukhopadhyay, Parameswaran and others were pillars of support.
Most of them
had the experience of having worked with the Directorate of Film
Festivals before they moved to the NFDC. I slowly warmed up to the
work of the organization and took it up more as a challenge than
anything else. With a year behind me now, the best thing I can say
about this new designation is that, for me, it has been an on-going
learning process. I am happy that I took it up in the first place.
On my next visit to this city, I plan to meet some Bengali filmmakers.
—Shoma
A. Chatterji
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