Lack of govt funding support hitting filmmakers hard

New Delhi: He has made nine films, but it has not been easy. For his movie, 'RK/RKay', around 800 people contributed with amounts ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 50,000. It happens to be one of the few Hindi films to have been crowdfunded, the last one being the 1976 'Manthan', starring Smita Patil for which 5,00,000 donated Rs 2 each.

"Crowdfunding is always hard, it is a desperate measure for desperate times. There are scripts which can't be made, and I am okay with that. But there are some which must go out there. They are important for me, if not for the world," actor and director Rajat Kapoor said.

An FTII pass-out who also does theatre very regularly, Kapoor says he is not sure if theatre has shaped him as a film director considering his first love has always been cinema.

"I discovered the stage by chance at the age of 20, and have been hooked ever since. I am sure in some way they have been influenced by each other, but I try and keep them very different. Because they are very different ideologically too and have different processes. Film is really a medium of the camera and you work through it whereas in theatre you work through the actor."

Remembering the period between the years 2004-2009, a golden time for contemporary low-budget cinema that witnessed several new filmmakers experiment with style and content, Kapoor says that it felt like it would be their era, something that was quite short-lived.

"Multiplexes were new and they needed to get films. However, by 2010, big-budget movies like 'Wanted' and 'Reddy' took all multiplex screens. By the time we wanted to release a film, there were no more screens left because they were releasing films on 3500-4000 screens. The place we thought was ours, was suddenly snatched." He feels that the same holds true for OTT platforms.

"Starting off, they were open to every idea and face, but as soon as they got access to stars, everything changed." The actor-director feels that the lack of state funding in cinema has severely impacted filmmakers.

"NFDC was folding its wings in the 90s, so we had nowhere to go. Some of the finest films had been made with the support of that body. Across the world, states support cinema. Sometimes it is through television."

Stressing that the past few years have been extremely difficult for independent filmmakers, Kapoor adds, "There are exceptions of course. But they exist because of their own efforts and passions."

The filmmaker, who has recently completed a film, a murder mystery, says acting for him has no process and he just learns his lines. "When it comes to filmmaking, it is a collaborative process. I play it by ear though it can be scary sometimes. It is exciting to not always know where we are going. Because when you do, then it is the best possible thing. But if you don't, then there are chances you might find something very beautiful."