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As I sit watching the edit happen on my movie Avakai-Biryani (Mango Pickled Biryani), I am reminded about how all of this first started……..
Back in 2006. Sekhar Kammula’s ‘Godavari’ had just released to good reviews but to an unfavorable box office response, finally ending as an ‘average’ film business wise. Having worked as both the executive producer and associate director on the film, I gave it my all and I mean MY ALL, shooting in the middle of that amazing river for a 100 days, with more than a 100 people on board 3 launches, bang in the middle of the monsoon, with the heaviest rainfall and floods being recorded ever, the production of Godavari was a truly life changing experience for me, something I will take to my grave, something that made me believe that we could shoot on Mt.Everest next if we wanted to….something that really made a …

Here’s something interesting that I wanted to share with you guys:

From the site Room 999

“Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?” This question was answered by a.o. Jean Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Steven Spielberg, in Wim Wenders’ 1982 film Room 666, which he made during the Cannes Film Festival.

We would like to update that question and rephrase it:

How does arthouse or independent film relate to growing commercialism?
We’ve invited film professionals from around the world to answer this question in our contemporary, but nonetheless equally urgent, spin off: Room 999.

Nowadays, cinema has a central position as a source of imagery, supplying our encompassing audiovisual culture. Still, as an artform, cinema is under fierce pressure. Development of thought and language has been narrowed down to elite arthouse cinema, which has troubles in reaching …

p.s the article below may or may not reflect times and tides in the Mumbai film industry. My thoughts are driven by Hyderabad and its business with the movies.

I have spent time (way too much!) introspecting /watching /observing/ the business of filmmaking. I have spent a lot of time, just thinking about what it takes to survive and be someone in this place, we call the film industry.
Everyone who is a success, whether a Yash Chopra or an Anurag Kashyap, deserves praise. Whether we like them, their films or not is immaterial. But for anyone to grudge their success, is…is futile and immature.

What the fuck am I talking about? This is films, right? Is this any place for us to set standards and have standards or achieve standards. Is this an art form or business disguised in the form of art? What is every filmmaker setting out to …

It’s a little over 2 weeks since COF released online. Its been something alright. Initially I just caved in to the pressure and the comments. I didn’t know how to react and sort of went into a shell. Also what was bothering me was I never had a chance to sit back and just enjoy the fact that I’d released my movie. There was tremendous backend support work which I had to do and am still doing.
I understood what it takes to have a pay-movie-site….things go wrong…people don’t get passwords….they don’t know how to login…there are video buffering problems,all kind of shit happens, I have had customers call me direct to my house…etc etc.
Through all of this I was trying to upload a higher quality video…but have failed so far…the uploads speeds just aren’t good enough here in India…but that’s alright.Anyways….so, it took a couple of weeks for everything …

Why make movies?
Yeah. Why? What purpose does it serve?
Entertainment? Escape? Enlightenment?, all of the above? (maybe that’s the answer) Or maybe its a turn on watching people (read actors) live out our fears and fantasies.

Why do we need it?
Because ‘Life’ is one big cinema. Its playing every hour, by the second, by the breath. And its hard for us to be our own audience, when we our playing the main leads.Also we don’t know how its all going to end. Or we all do know how its going to end.How predictable is that?
So cinema, the best of cinema, is life in a nut shell. Or should we call it in a theatre shell?

So who deserves to make movies?
RGV famously said, anyone can make a movie. Its hard for a pro-filmmaker to take that. But he is sort of right, but in an existential way, yes, anyone can make …

its been ages since i have written on passion….i feel extremely guilty about that, but i have been possessed with getting my film ‘confessions of a film-maker’ ready….and its done finally…and i had a show for the press and some members of the film fraternity….
i am writing now simply because i need an outlet…an outlet for all the emotions spewing through me since the show….

i have been ostracized and hailed….while i dont feel a thing when someone heaps praise…the criticisms have been hard to swallow…and you might ask, so whats the big deal?….everyone has to face it…but its different in my case…

a certain section of the industry and press have asked me ‘what right do i have to comment on the film industry?’ (incase people dont know, my film confessions of a film-maker is a no holds barred take on the telugu film industry)…to continue, i have been asked ‘what …

So when is the new wave coming? Or did the new wave actually come and go? Did we all miss the bus? I’m talking about what people have been harping about for a few years now. But I think they miss the point….
See just because certain production companies have turned corporate, it doesn’t mean the films they produce or the directors that are making films with them are saying anything new…its only re-packaged and better designed….for the so called multiplex audience (isn’t everyone a multiplex audience anyway)…

this is no new wave…gimme a break…

A new wave is like a renaissance, a movement in which the arts, be it music,theatre and cinema, signifies a growing change in ideas and attitude…a growing resilience to taboos and myths….a conviction in telling stories regardless of aftermath….a desire for truth as an individual see’s it….a platform for expression of personal freedom,ambitions,desires,secrets, etc etc, almost anything we …

Yep that’s pretty much what I have been upto. why you might ask? Well, to answer that, I have to look inwards. Maybe I have never been an honest man my entire life, maybe I have never ever told people what I really, really felt all the time, maybe I have been way too diplomatic, way too friendly, in the process I have made a great deal of friends in this place (the telugu film industry) and no enemies to name off.

For the un-initiated, who are about to ask, “what the hell I am talking about?”. Well I am talking about my journey so far with a film I have made called “Confessions of a Film-maker”. The story of the film is set in Hyderabad, and follows the life of a frustrated film-maker. He is frustrated because, he imagined all along that he had done pretty much everything right with …

Its been 24 hours since my first post and not an hour has passed without me thinking,whether I really deserve equal footing as the folks on top of me. I mean Sudhir Mishra,Anurag Kashyap…jeez, I am just diddly squat compared to these giants.I dont know. Been feeling kinda guilty, but I have decided while I may not have their under-ground,grindhouse appeal, I do have loads of experience in this business. I want readers to understand that, they have me when it comes to that….little stories about life in the business and outside it too. So lets see, what do I want to write about today?

WARNING—WARNING,THE FOLLOWING ESSAY HAS SENTENCES WHICH MIGHT OFFEND SOME. SO PLEASE STAY AWAY IF THE POST HEADING SEEMS OFF-PUTTING.

Alright so, I was thinking about writing about why film-makers (k,Ill cover my ass and say ’some’) get horny. yeah. I thought that would be interesting to talk …

Why call myself that huh? Well why not? Thats what I’ve been upto the last decade or so.Saving the poor,lighting up their lives,bringing joy to millions…yes thats me!..cinema man. Its a bird,no its a plane…noooooo, its cinema-man, cry out millions every friday when they see me zipping through the stratosphere….
Sigh…Ok I’ll shut up with the crap. I’m just a regular guy in the business, who has been upto some slightly irregular business the past few months.But more on that later….

Who am i? and why should I be reading you? Well..hmm..lets see, how about a brief bio about myself. Here’s a listing of my chequered career..

1) My first job was being Baba Sehgal’s body guard, as he landed in Hyderabad airport. I was overjoyed with the opportunity of making way for him through a throng of people. Baba was quite overjoyed himself, that he had a personal security escort to his …