Sold my house to produce a film: Guneet Monga

She is behind films like "Kavi", "Gangs of Wasseypur", "Peddlers" and "The Lunchbox" and her passion for cinema is such that she once sold her house to finance a film.
Guneet, 29, is the CEO of Anurag Kashyap Films, and is known to have always supported young breed of filmmakers when it comes to producing a movie.
The producer recalls an incident where she sold her house to finance a movie titled "Monsoon Shootout" directed by debutante Amit Kumar three years ago.
"I sold my home to produce a movie... The film is called 'Monsoon shootout'. It hasn't released yet. It has a nine year long journey of raising finance. The director was supposed to release it under the UK-India treaty but because of depression the producers pulled off the money.

"When Amit came to me with the story... I loved it. It is one of the best script I have ever read. I tried to take it to my producer friends but no one was interested. Then I went ahead and did what was required. It's the cinema bug which gets to you... I just want to put that story out there and that is all one can think of. It is a beautiful movie," said Guneet on the sidelines of the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF).
She was here to present her recently released movie "The Lunchbox", which was also the opening film of DIFF.

"Monsoon Shootout" stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tannishtha Chatterjee in the lead and it was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival during the Midnight Screenings section.

As for "The Lunchbox" which has travelled festivals around the world, Guneet said the team never imagined the movie would become so successful.
"Ritesh Batra (director) was working on another script and we were doing rounds of co-production market for that film. But he later came with this movie idea and said he wants to work on it. He took 15 days to work on this story and from the scripting stage we knew that it would be a beautiful film. The expectations were high and we were nervous about how will it shape up on-screen. But after screening it at the Cannes, the response was overwhelming," she said.

The epistolary romantic film took around 35 days to shoot and was based on real Mumbai dabawalas. Guneet says the film, a mix of documentary and fiction style, has been sold around 35 territories around the world.