'Our nation is Bollywood-obsessed and it bothers me'

In 1998, filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor made Hyderabad Blues in Rs 17 lakh. It was a huge success. He says it’s possible to make a film in under Rs 1 crore, even in the current inflationary climate. And he, for one, knows what he’s talking about. Mumbai is home to Kukunoor, even though the common perception is that he lives in Hyderabad. He spoke to Firstpost about his craft and what gives him the Bollywood blues. Excerpts: You’ve been hesitant to make a love story in the past. What was the inspiration to explore romance on screen via Mod_, your next film?_ I’d always said I won’t make a love story, love songs too, though Mod has two songs — which is huge for me — because I feel that it’s a topic that’s been abused. Everyone’s written love stories. When you’re not convinced that you can bring something unique to the table, I don’t want to venture down that path. But in this business, you never say never, and sure enough, when I saw this little Taiwanese film, Keeping Watch, I thought there is something in there that I could take away and put in an Indian environment; that’s how Mod came about. The core is the core, and in that respect, films transcend the barriers of language. When I took a step back and analysed it, I realised I enjoyed love stories and romances between completely mismatched people, not the traditional format. So many romantic movies are made in India and it is amazing how uninspired the romances are. The hero comes in from the left of the screen and the heroine from the right, and voila, they are in love. It has happened to me in real life, love at first sight, and possibly every one else too, but as a storyteller, there are a thousand more creative ways to tell a story. It is very boring to see the same thing over and over again. Rannvijay, who is an actor who can actually act, and Ayesha Takia, who I think is India’s finest actress, play the lead parts in the film. It’s one of those fortuitous things, the right cast. If we’d used known actors, the moment they are on the screen, you know they are going to fall in love. Hence you have lost a good bit of the build-up and the drama and quirks. Though Ayesha is a known face and you know it is a love story in the broad sense, when you enter the world of the characters, there is a lot of stuff that is unfolding and you wonder where this is leading. [caption id=“attachment_58262” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=““In this business, you never say never.” Raju Shelar/Firstpost”]  [/caption] When people say only a certain kind of film will work and you come out of the left field and you make something else work, it is amazing! The theme of an old-fashioned romance is far more appealing to me; it sticks out in the current crop of love stories, if you will. Even though the actors are young, it has a very old-fashioned feel about it. When you’ve cast big stars in your films, like Akshay Kumar in 8x10 Tasveer and John Abraham in Aashayein_, the films didn’t work. It seems like you work best with unknown faces, a departure from the norm for most successful directors. How do you explain that?_ Strangely enough, even though I’ve used big stars, people think that the moment you use a known face or a star, the content and style of story-telling changes, that it becomes a commercial film which it’s not, neither was Aashayein nor 8x10 Tasveer. And when I say commercial, I mean what we understand in the traditional sense. A movie not working has a bunch of reasons and every director will list out a hundred. These two specific films did not work for very different reasons. Aashayein was supposed to be released in 2008 and then there was a squabble between Reliance and Percept and the film got stuck. And when you restart a film that is on the verge of release, you have literally, nine out of ten times, sounded the death knell for the film. It is very, very hard to resuscitate a film then. 8x10 Tasveer was a completely different thing. The film suffered a bad schedule in Canada. I always shoot my films on the trot; production handled it very poorly and then I spent one year playing catch up, shooting the film in pieces, which I have never done before. All of my films I have shot at a stretch, all the 11 films I have made. This was the only film shot in sporadic spurts - some portions in January, March, some in the following January. The film got stretched out and then eventually, there was a distributors’ strike, and the film did not open well. When a film is mounted, it is very easy at the end to say picture chali nahi and whittle it down. But sometimes, there are a whole bunch of factors at play. It’s luck of the draw — the two films that I have with really big actors didn’t work and the small ones have. People clearly draw conclusions that I should make smaller films because these ones did not work. It’s not that the endgame was to work myself up to big stars, and now that I’ve gotten them, that’s it; I’ll only work with big stars. That was never a part of the plan. It’s an assumption in the industry that after all these years to reach a John and Akshay and then, go back to a smaller cast because the big ones didn’t work out. I do have scripts that demand bigger actors, and in the future, hopefully, those scripts will also get made. I have never force-fitted an actor into a role. The role should work around the actor and that’s the beauty of working with unknown actors like Rannvijay because they bring no baggage. There’s a little bit with him because he’s known as this macho guy on MTV Roadies and he’s playing a soft sensitive guy in Mod. Every film has a certain budget that allows a certain kind of actor. Take 8x10 Tasveer, you cannot try and shoot it on a 3 crore budget with an unknown name, or get 20 crore on an unknown name. Both are not possible. You filmed Hyderabad Blues in Rs 17 lakh. That was trendsetting as far as indie films are concerned. Today, even to make a small film, crores are required. How do filmmakers like you, for whom the story and script are paramount, survive? That’s true. Mod is a 5-and-a-half crore film. I quote the Coen brothers’ Oscar acceptance speech for their film, No Country For Old Men, where they’d said: “We are really thankful that you let us play in our corner of the sand box”. I really wish there was such a scenario here where I would make this crazy little, off-the-wall kind of films for a really small amount. There is a pattern with production and distribution scale – made in X amount and released in Y and everyone is happy. But it doesn’t work that way here because we are all competing for the same space. That’s the problem that all small filmmakers, me included, face. When I say small filmmakers, it means filmmakers who work with small budgets, not having known faces in their film, because even if you have a splashy 10 crore film with an unknown face, it is a small film. Let’s never ever forget that movie-making is a business and it is someone else’s money. You do have a responsibility to it, however, I feel in the order of getting a movie made, passion for the project needs to come first and business second. More often than not, it’s the business that comes first and decides everything and the content and everything is structured towards that. When you eventually come up to get a film released, you are literally convincing the distributors and everyone that my film can play in multiplexes. In the West, a Coen brothers film releases in 500 screens and Spielberg’s in 4,000 screens, but there are enough places to get the films screened so people can see it. But here, I am fighting the same multiplex space that Salman Khan’s Ready will come in and when Ready comes in, my film’s gonna be tossed out like that, no matter what it’s doing; it might be doing two good shows, it doesn’t matter. Continues on the next page How much money does a new filmmaker need to make a film today and how much of it should be allotted to the actors? I’d say using the digital format, under 1 crore, of which the actors get zero. All the money should be spent on the technical side — sets, locations, camera, post production because you can always find ways to spend money on the technical side. Nagesh’s Bollywood blues: • I get pissed off when filmmakers who start out say they need 3 crore to make a film. You really don’t. • While we have a lot of screens being added, we are still fighting for the same space with the big fellas and that becomes a little bit of a challenge. When the multiplexes first came in, I was so excited. For a small film to get a full house of 200 people is more likely than to fill up a 1,000 seater theatre, which was the module when Hyderabad Blues got made. On the contrary, I never realised if you have 20 screens at Cinemax, they’ll be taken up by Krissh3 or something. And the ticket prices are high, a deterrent of sorts for a small film. I’ve been saying this from the beginning that the moment you have a smaller film, price it lower. Price it at Rs 125 and you will get people and they will spend on the popcorn and everything. I love independent films but when I go to the box office and I’m coughing up 300-400 bucks, for a guy who can afford it all the time, you still think why not see some dhamaal film and come back unless you really hate that kind of cinema. If you had the money to spend on one movie, then the chances are you would go for the bigger film. When the NFDC was alive and well, they had theatres dedicated to releasing NFDC films, so there was a sub culture. People who wanted the “art house” cinema, but great cinema, could go see those films. Now, it is only surviving in Kolkata. There is no other place in India. Interesting films still play and get made in Kerala but in terms of public exhibition, we are just down to Kolkata. There is nothing in Mumbai; it is a big, fat zero. [caption id=“attachment_58262” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=““In this business, you never say never.” Raju Shelar/Firstpost”]  [/caption] • I dislike broken and scattered filming schedules. I shoot films very aggressively and very fast. Other than ‘8x10 Tasveer’ that I’ve explained before, all my films have a 40 day shooting record, which was broken by ‘Mod’ which took 42 days. Seriously, if you look at all the Hollywood films, 40 days is a nice, solid number. • Another problem is hardly any of the interviews I do are about my craft. They are like 1 in 50 that I do. Just broad strokes and I can a) have a robot doing that and b) it is a waste of my time. Unfortunately, it is a necessity. The craft is something very exciting to talk about since we are all passionate about it otherwise we won’t be in this business. • A ridiculous system that is geared only to the stars — there really has to be a balance. Stars are actors and it would be nice if that part came into focus more often. It is not Bollywood per se, but our nation, which is Bollywood-obsessed. It really scares me. Earlier, when you asked kids what they wanted to be, there was a spread, there were different role models. I remember when I was growing up, most girls picked Indira Gandhi and a big draw at that time was Rakesh Sharma who had circled the earth. Now, even though, in a poll, people might skewer their answers, it is either Bollywood or the next level is cricket. That’s where we stop as a nation. There is no desire to do anything else. That really bothers me. Primarily, this obsession with Bollywood has to stop. A good indicator is if you watch TV — which I haven’t in about five years because I don’t have cable — you’ll see Bollywood stars all over. Every hoarding has something being hawked by a Bollywood star; everything on TV is being hawked by them and if it is not them, the next tier is the cricket stars. That can’t bode well for a nation.