The little film grows up

Why are big Bollywood banners increasingly encouraging small films.

How many songs?" That's how producers greet filmmakers, peering suspiciously through half-open doors, like housewives reacting to unwanted streams of salesmen on a monotonous afternoon.

If the filmmaker is not in the Yash Chopra or Karan Johar league, or doesn't have a godfather pushing his case, he has no choice but to put together his best salesman act and hardsell the idea of browsing through the script. Once that's done and the door has been opened hesitatingly, the filmmaker has to market his script to the producer.

If the film is a typical Bollywood venture, then there's hope. But if it's labeled any fancy names "" like parallel, crossover, multilingual and so on "" the film's in for tough luck. Ask filmmakers like Nagesh Kukunoor who, after making his acclaimed debut Hyderabad Blues, still found funds hard to come by for several of his other endeavours.

But this time the gods smiled on Kukunoor, whose latest venture "" Iqbal "" has been completely produced and distributed by film giant Subhash Ghai's Mukta Searchlight Films. Only due to the strong support did Iqbal manage to bag Rs 98 lakh in its first week itself, which is excellent for a small film.

Ghai's strategy for the film has been simple "" first organise a premier for the media and allow a week to get word of mouth and public relations working for the film.

Then release only 55 prints of the film all over India initially, so that the housefull boards pull crowds to the theatres. Of course, promising promos and glowing reviews did their bit too. And Mukta Searchlight also put in a word to distributors to hold on to the film till audiences knew the film was running and flocked to theatres.

And that's half the battle won for a small film without a star-cast.

"If your film doesn't have big stars, it gets shifted to a two o' clock show or any such time slot, when people are busy and can't catch the film. Then the film is branded a flop even before word of mouth has had a chance to rake in viewers, and then its pulled out of theatres," says Onir, who directed My Brother Nikhil.

Yet, he agrees, the Yash Raj Films tag as a distributor helped his film hit theatres and stay there long enough to find its audience. The film house also spent Rs 65 lakh for promos and publicity on My Brother Nikhil.

While big banners have not exactly taken small films under their wing, they have recognised an emerging business potential in this segment.

"Indian audiences have a feudal attitude; they are passive and want the film to do all the thinking for them. But a new thinking Indian audience is emerging and they'll be lost to Western cinema if they aren't given good Indian films. And this audience will only grow," says Sudhir Mishra, director, Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi.

Ruchi Narain, director of the recent Kal "" Yesterday and Tomorrow echoes the thought and adds, "Production houses are here to make money and Mr Ghai is a good businessman at the end of the day."

Small films are more feasible today than say 10 years ago. A new generation has taken over film production houses and their sensibilities are strikingly different from that of their predecessors.

Then, festivals also predict big bucks but typical Bollywood films aren't taken seriously there, so small films come into the picture. My Brother Nikhil is expected to bag a total of Rs 3.5 crore by mid next year, at 17 international film festivals.

Then, apart from innovative selling strategies like ringtones, there are also the burgeoning home entertainment markets, satellite markets and overseas markets to be looked at. The PVR multiplex chain distributed Hazaron Khwais-hein Aisi while the Shringar chain distributed Hyderabad Blues and Mr & Mrs Iyer.

Multiplexes like Inox and Adlabs are also splashing into the market soon. So why should established film houses be left behind in the race?

While Mukta Arts continues to spend about Rs 36 crore every year making three big productions "" costing between Rs 10 crore and Rs 12 crore per film "" Mukta Searchlight intends to spend Rs 16 crore per year making about three-four films, made for Rs 3-4 crore each. And Ghai's new experiment is open to animations and documentaries too.

"Documentaries are often controversial "" which adds entertainment value," says Rahul Puri, vice president-finance and strategy, Mukta Arts.

But small filmmakers can't really smile whole-heartedly yet. While big budget Bollywood films have an average of 500 prints in the first opening itself, small films can have as little as an initial 40 prints. After three weeks of business, Iqbal is grossing over Rs 4.1 lakh per print, and anything above Rs 3 lakh per print is seen as great recovery for any film.

So if producers stop giving small films the stepbrotherly treatment, it could become a win-win situation for everyone. It's time they tucked their caution into a corner and opened the door to this new segment with a wide smile.