Line of Descent: Makers hope their crossover film will become a trendsetter

Can you make an Indian feature film with Western production values and sell it to a global audience? It’s a question the makers of Line of Descent are hoping will be answered in the affirmative. In fact, the film’s London- and Los Angeles-based producer, Guy Louthan, is betting this could be a business plan for a whole series of projects.

In an interview, he explains, “Everything we make now is being made with the intent of global application. We wanted to bring into play the American system, which is where a lot of financing for films is generated, but the one thing that they cannot come to grips with is the feeling of loss of control over where and how their money is being spent.”

The film, which is in Hindi, is set in Delhi, where a local mafia’s family members are at war with one another following the death of their father, even as a veteran cop plans an undercover operation to take them down. “By the end of the film, most of the men are dead,” quips Louthan. 

Line of Descent stars many well-known Indian faces including Ronit Roy, Abhay Deol and Neeraj Kabi, as well as Hollywood actor Brendan Fraser as a manipulative arms dealer. 

Louthan and the film’s writer and debutant director, Rohit Karn Batra, say Fraser loved shooting in India, and plunged into his role, researching minute details like desi patterns for his arm tattoos. “He was calling older persons ‘uncle’,” says Batra.

He says he chose the subject as issues like property disputes and family tensions held universal appeal, emphasising that the story was not “culturally grounded” like Slumdog Millionaire or Monsoon Wedding. “This is a story that’s like cops and robbers — that could happen in Russia, it could happen in Brazil, it could happen in India.” He also insisted on shooting with 35 mm film. 

The mushrooming of SVOD (subscription video on demand) platforms worldwide has created demand for new categories of content that films like Line of Descent can benefit from. Ironically, Batra, who works out of Los Angeles and Mumbai, started scripting the film over a decade ago, at a time when Netflix was still sending out DVDs in the mail to its subscribers. 

Batra says he took care to keep his story timeless. “Films take a long time to make and I think a mistake a lot of people make is that they write films thinking it’s going to be made tomorrow.” He adds, “I decided to write a script that would be made in India — financially it would be cheaper and I wanted to work with actors that I did like out there.”

While Louthan has the “booming” SVOD market in mind, he and Batra are also hoping for a theatrical release, especially in India. “The Indian audience is growing exponentially, there’s a middle class that’s highly educated, and I’m hoping they are going to be looking for more of this kind of material — worldly, gritty and international,” Louthan says.

Louthan, who has planned, packaged and produced nearly a hundred feature films and television productions for various studios including Columbia, DreamWorks, Sony and HBO, specialises in international co-productions. He previously shot in India for Roland Joffe’s Time Traveller and, impressed by the country’s film talent and locations, hoped to return. But he also wanted to move away from the big Hollywood studios’ approach to shooting in India. 

“There are always teething problems with large companies coming in and trying to force six gallons of water into a five-gallon can. They come in and expect the local environment to work to their terms and conditions,” Louthan notes. 

For Line of Descent, Louthan worked at a more “realistic” pace and made use of local talent, but the stipulations attached to American financing also meant using top technical talent from the US, Europe and Australia. For Batra, it meant a somewhat different approach to filmmaking. He explains, “We have all of the film in sync sound. We shot on location, we didn’t shoot on sets, things like that. I just wanted to make the best film I could make.” 

With his business plan for Line of Descent, Louthan is betting on the Indian film industry and market. If his formula works, it could become a model for showcasing Indian talent on a much bigger scale at the global level with projects that have true crossover appeal.