FROZEN PREMIERE, PUNE
Saturday, 30 May, 2009 has been the fifth happiest day of my life. For a life of 32 years full of happenings, this is more than just a mere statement. It’s a conviction of priorities. I have unashamedly admitted this to some close friends, as well as to the team of Frozen, just before they were about to leave for Mumbai, after the successful premiere of Frozen in Pune. And it brings relatively more happiness because I was not even sure whether it would turn out the amazing way that it did. It’s been just about twenty-four hours since it concluded, and I am in a state of tiredness and lethargy, probably enjoying the sense of achievement. I have to resume office tomorrow, and I don’t want this weekend to end, I don’t want to lose track of the seamlessness with which the entire event has gone through.
Ok, let me begin at the beginning. Word about Frozen had been going on at PFC much before I had come here for the first time, and the talks of the film not being able to get the commercial release despite having won multiple awards and enviable accolades would intrigue me. After all, are not all the movies, good, bad or ugly, able to generate some window for the general public? With time, the revelations kept coming in: a first-time director who doesn’t believe in sycophancy and calls a spade exactly that; B/W film shot on location at one of the most treacherous terrains in the world under one of the most trying circumstances; no song-n-dance routine stuff people are so used to; unknown or almost non-commercially-saleable actors in the movie; no love angle (well, at least not the type that we generally expect); an almost philosophical premise which might put the average movie-goer to sleep (well, Mr. Rajeev Masand certainly thinks so…) and so many more, none of them conducive for a commercial release.
At the same time, whoever among the PFC fraternity had watched the film was singing paeans about it. Also, all the Foreign Film Festival Awards could not have been a fluke. How can we question the collective wisdom of such varied strata of knowledgeable cinephiles? And to top it all, one has never known Danny-saab to undertake a pedestrian project. On his part, the director, Shivajee Chandrabhushan always kept a brave face, and in between his commitments at various film fests, had a public screening of the film in Mumbai on 22 February, 2009. Many people, including some of the PFCians I know got lucky that day. Some others, who had not been so lucky, got even luckier by sharing the experience at the lion’s den, getting the running commentary from “the MAN” himself! Jealousy and Helplessness were the two emotions most commonly felt during those days….
Then came the good news amid the ongoing producers vs. multiplex stand-off that Frozen is releasing on 8 May, 2009 across Mumbai, with a scheduled staggered release in other metro-cities. A group of PFCians, along with Shivajee, made it a well-remembered affair, and sufficient amount of buzz and awareness was created among the target audience. The fact that Pune was not among the initially scheduled cities was definitely a dampener for me, but Mumbai was accessible, so plans were immediately chalked out with a few friends to visit one of the multiplexes on the first weekend itself. The fact that some other engagement came up, and the whole thing ended up in a different way altogether (some of them were failed attempts as well) is a separate story in itself.
On one such heartbreaking afternoon, the fact dawned on me: some of the scheduled shows (especially the weekday afternoon ones) are getting cancelled for want of patrons. The fact that people need to be shaken up from their slumber of ignorance to witness magic on screen was really ironical, and I started getting edgy whether the film will hold its steam by the time it eventually comes chugging to Pune. I had already sounded off most of my friends to travel to Mumbai in a sizeable number, (all expenses borne by me, of course as a carrot), which they had heartily agreed to as well. They had obviously not heard of the movie, and honestly, I did not have the heart to tell them the complete truth, lest they start finding excuses for this so-called “excuse-of-a-film”, as one friend put it. (He is no longer in my inner circle of friends, but that again, is a different story). I wanted them to at least get inside the theatre, and then treat the film on its own merit, which I was personally quite confident of.
Among all this planning and plotting came the revelation that Frozen was indeed coming to Pune on 29 May, 2009, much ahead of its schedule at any other city after Mumbai. Phir kya tha, I sounded off all my friends about the likely date & time of the show. Our fellow PFCian Sethu had already initiated the awareness and possibility of the other PFC-regulars in Pune coming together for the movie to show solidarity to Frozen and PFC. At the end of first day’s efforts, there were at least 10-12 interested candidates and I was sure that at least the show would not be cancelled anymore.
It was Friday, 29th of May, the scheduled release date in Pune, and after having confirmed the show-timings, I forwarded a mail to all the prospective viewer-friends, with an assurance that it was my party, and they all were supposed to enjoy an outing thrown in with a movie as well… Considering Shivajee’s earlier open-armed and non-conditional consent to entertain us with his personal presence whenever I would be coming over to Mumbai with my friends for Frozen, I wondered whether he would grace us by his presence and drive down to Pune, since he was in Mumbai over the weekend. Sethu once again graciously agreed to take the initiative in convincing Shivajee, and before I could imagine what was happening, Shivajee had said yes, despite his previously scheduled engagements in Mumbai.
The moment of truth had arrived. What started as a friendly initiative was taking some official shape now. The confirmation from Shivajee made me think whether the management of Inox (the scheduled location of the show) could be convinced to arrange some official welcome. They, of course, consented and wanted to know who else was accompanying Shivajee. A few phone calls and requests and cajoling later, we had Gauri, Yashpal Sharma, Ssanjay Swaraj, Shanker Raman, Triparna Banerjee and Kamalesh among the cast & crew, and Saurabh Dubey (a close friend of Shivajee and an actor in his own right) accompanying him. One thing led to the other, and now I wondered whether the media could be requested to cover the event. Some more phone calls, and Pune Mirror and Indian Express consented to cover the event.
It was at this point that I asked Inox whether they could officially conduct it as a “premiere-show”. Some hard-nosed bargaining & marketing-gyaan and “customer-is-the-king” & “we-have-so-many-other-options-as-well-but-we-want-to-bond-with-the-best” later, it came to the business-end of the discussion. Their only worry: whether the auditorium would be full, and whether they would end up making any loss on it by propagating the event and not getting proper response. They gave me a choice: book the entire auditorium, or at least commit that you will, and we can have an official “premiere”. Some back-of-the-envelope-calculation later, I offered the partnership-handshake. Well, within minutes, the advertisement declaring the event was put up on Inox’s Box Office as well as advertisement board, and the media was once again confirmed about the event. Now, Pune Mirror wanted to do a preview article on this, and soon, telephonic interviews were held, photographs were sought, and itineraries were frozen (pun intended). All set for the big day.
How should you react when you see your face staring back at you from the front page of the morning newspaper? Especially since it had never been your “Dasvidaniya-dream” at all…! One of the best days of my life had already started. Shivajee had already obliged by agreeing to come over for the show, and now he was doing a great favour by consenting to put up in my home (along with his entire gang) during his stay in Pune for the day. What more could a fan-boy have asked for? Well, things started taking shape since early morning, and unknown people from all walks of life started asking whether they could come for the show, thanks to the article in Pune Mirror. They had only three questions: (1) Is it really a premiere where the director & heroine would be present? (2) Is Danny-saab also coming? (3) Most importantly, will they have to pay anything for the tickets? My stock answer to all of them: (1) Of course (2) Unfortunately, No (3) No, don’t worry; it’s been taken care of. Just be there well within time.
Shivajee and others came home, we had loads of fun, Yashpal-ji came a bit later, but Shanker Raman couldn’t make it due to some prior commitments. Well, when we reached the venue, the crowd had already gathered in droves, the cast and crew were officially welcomed, and by the time the show started, the head-count had reached the elusive and all-important hundred (one better than 99). Throw in a few more of the media-representatives, and the show had well and truly kicked-off on a successful note. The Q&A session at the end of the show was equally interesting, with the usual questions being answered by Shivajee like a seasoned pro, having answered the same set of questions almost at all the previous Q&A sessions. 
Some media-interaction and photo-ops later, we rounded off the show with an extended coffee-session for the select few, and before we realised, it was time for the Frozen team to go back to Mumbai, considering they had a hectic Sunday ahead, and there was a birthday-candidate among them. I did what I had wanted to do ever since I had met them in the morning, and took autographs of all of them for posterity-sake, as well as to satiate my fan-boy desires.
I had not slept the previous night, being too excited in expectation of seeing them all in flesh-n-blood in my own home, and I did not sleep that night, being too excited and remembering how smoothly everything had gone-off. Of course, there was contentment with a sense-of-achievement as well. Did I say it was one of the happiest days of my life?
The morning after:
• Most of my friends have already started threatening me with dire consequences in case I am not able to land them with at least a standing-in-the-crowd role some time really soon. I think I will not meet them for some-time, since Shivajee’s next is still at the scripting stage.
• Pune Mirror has carried an exhaustive interview of Shivajee, and Indian Express has comprehensively covered Gauri.
• The word-of-mouth publicity as well as the media-coverage has garnered enough eye-balls for the shows on Sunday to have sizeable audience who have paid to watch.
Tags: frozen, Premiere, Pune
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Jha- very well done indeed.will never get tired telling you the same.and I just wish I had managed to somehow have more time in hand so that I could have surprised you with my visit.anways viva cinema !!!
“I had already sounded off most of my friends to travel to Mumbai in a sizeable number, (all expenses borne by me, of course as a carrot),”
Unbelievable!!!
On one hand I felt, pagal hai yeh!!
on the other its definitely one hell of an effort.
Brave, very brave of you Satyendra Jha.
BRAVO JHA BRAVO!!!!
Now that’s a serious case of passion! Hats off!
gr8 dude … hats off to u. this is not just passion, something more than that …
I went bonkers too man!! seeing you on front page of PUNE MIRROR!!! Apna PFC ka banda front page par!!! superhit!!!!
btw a sad thing for me was that the pickhur mere 10 feet upar se gayi… Pakad mein nahi aayi bhai!! but then thats a different story rite… cheers to ur super effort… apna PFC ke meet ko Premiere bana diya…Yeh hui na baat!!!
thanks guys. nice to know u appreciate the effort. i will always b indebted to Shivajee n Frozen team for giving me the opportunity…
Great initiative, Satyendra!
my buddy veejay still cant stop gushing n praising your effort! awesome… thanks!
Three Cheers for you!!
@ Arun, Magik & Sourav: thanks for appreciation guys.
@ Magik: ya, it was great fun to meet ur frnds n talk abt u as the common link. im glad they made it. we were missing u so much…
but for the geographical atyachar & the short notice, i wud have certainly made it… :-(
magik @ 11: hahaha. i like that honest confession. im aware of ur desire as well as the massive efforts Sethu was taking, trying to be there for the premiere.
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“atyachar” with any choice-prefix is THE in-thing, and always apt. Long Live AK. viva cinema…
I felt really sorry for those are movie and art buffs in my groups and couldn’t make it. what a colossal loss!
Satyendra:Your passion is exemplary. Congratulations on such a major success of the Pune premier!
I felt really sorry for those who are movie and art buffs in my groups and couldn’t make it. what a colossal loss!
Satyendra:Your passion is exemplary. Congratulations on such a major success of the Pune premier!
hum naacheezon ki zindagi mein aise haseen din kab aayenge !!!! ????? !!!! :-|
@ Shatik: yaar, simple hai. whichever city u r in, whenever Frozen releases, 5-6 doston ko milaakar film dekhne jaa and have a blast.
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i tell u, it will b worth the effort.
btw, Frozen has won two more awards at the Imagine India Film festival held at Madrid on 30th of May, the day of the Pune premiere.
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BEST FILM & BEST MUSIC.
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Sethu is trying to put the link thru Qwiki.
aap meri durdasha se waakif nahi ho isliye aisa keh rahe ho !!! khair aapko aur nahi pakaoonga ….
i’ll pray i get to watch this movie in the near future by any possible mean.
@ Shatik: i can understand boss. i felt the same helplessness on certain occassions for this film.
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dont worry, the DVD is likely to come out in 4-5 weeks from now. hope u catch up with the film then at your own leisure. Cheers…
@Satyendra
I just don’t have words :-)
@ Shivajee: arre sir, dont embarrass any further. btw, aapke POV ka intezaar sabko bahut besabri se hai. ab likh bhi daaliye…
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aur sir, yeh Imagine India Film Festival Dhamaka…mazaa aa gaya….
Satyendra and Shivajee….when is this releasing in Bangalore? Make it fast before the stupid releases hit the screen…
@Cherish
I think I should make one thing clear. Satyendra is not involved with the release of Frozen. My distributors are Enlighten and Shringar films.
Bangalore will come after Kolkata and Delhi. But will come for sure. And no we are not worried about the stupid releases :-)…
@ Cherish: boss, im sure u hv not read my post properly. hd u done so, u wud hv realised that I am just a fan of Frozen, and tried to do my bit within my limited capabilities.
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the ownership of he film lies entirely with the producer / director of the film, Shivajee Chandrabhushan, and Enlighten Films and Shringar Films are distributing the film on pan-India basis in a staggered manner.
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Mumbai & Pune are through. Delhi, Kolkata & Bangalore are definitely in line. This I know as a fan-boy, not as an interesetd party (well, not monetarily at least)
Hey Satyendra..I know you’re a fan and have read the post completely..wanted to check with both of you on the release here… this is like information seeking:) (i.e. in case you happen to know).
Anyway…eagerly waiting for it to release.
Actually wanted to check with Shivajee alone, but then acknowledged your name too :-) since you’re the author of the post…
@ Cherish: hmmm, sorry for having sounded a bit harsh earlier. no offence meant. and i appreciate ur recognition of my efforts towards Frozen in whatever capacity.
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dont worry, bangalore should be happening within this month, hopefully.
@jHA,
People like you, make belive the world is still a good place.
A great and nice effort.
@ Cinemausher; arre sirjee, bahut badi baat keh di..Thanks a ton.
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w.r.t. ur earlier comment on the other frozen post, i would surely like to buy u a tkt and see the smile on ur face. priceless…
Salute the effort and the passion that you have for this movie.. I still remember the initial offer of driving down to Mumbai for the show…!!! Finally after almost a month we saw the movie and all because of your efforts..!! Kudos… ;)
Amazing stuff this!!
@ arthi: thanks yaar. wish u were there.. we missed u.
@ Hemant: sirjee, maine toh expect bhi nahi kiya tha aap bhi yahan aakar humein anugriheet karoge…
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yes, u hv been one of the first few who was offered this option by me almost a month back. im glad u never backed out…
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its the friends like u that made me comfortable that the show wud b a success. and it was.
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thanks sir,again…
Satyendra,
Really gr8 job sirjee. This is what we call ‘Passion with a Difference’. You have clearly set a definition of passion miles apart from interest and penchant.
All this passion stuff has really made me think of my own inner passions.
@Satyendra – Late here but CONGRATS bro!
You’ve made the day on 30th for many people..
@Jha,
waiting for you to come to mumbai.
@ Anshul: sir, i had not even imagined in my wildest dreams that u will grace us on this site, and that too with a comment… first hemant, and now u, i feel soooo lucky to have friends & supporters in pune like u.
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thanks to u n Ruchi for being there for the premiere show on 30th of May, and making it such a resounding success.
@ Indraneel: dada, thanks for the kind words, but eto formality keno? without doubt u r one of the main driving force behind the genesis n success of Frozen.
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however, as an aside, coming from u, its a great honour. thanks again. keep us motivated…
@ Cinemausher: sure thing yaar, me too eagerly waiting…it might b soon. wud let u know more whn we meet…
Congratulations for all your efforts. You are really a good host and passionate event manager.Your excitement and sense of satisfaction is evident from the post.
My bad, I couldn’t attend it despite being so near.
Jha saab tho phaad diye….Kudos….btw no reply to reply-email?
Salaam Shivajee Sir….when is it going to release in Hyd…do we have a chance….
@ uh: thanks uh. yeah, it wud hv been better if more from PFC wud hv been a part of the show, but its OK. mayb some other ‘event’…!!
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“good host” and “passionate event manager” are big words,and honestly, i dont think I deserve them yet.
@ Sridhar: thanks buddy. hey, i wasnt able to check my gmail after that failed attempt. sorry for the no-reply. wasnt intentional.
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nice to see u back on PFC. hope everything in ur personal / professional life is doing better now… Cheers…
@Satyen – Bas chalra bro…Sab teek…Cheers to u too…