Why I Supported Americanizing Shelley
Hi Folks,
Administering SAAFA for a few years now, have always had a fair share of folks wanting to collaborate or seek out assistance to make a film. In all this time, the honest truth be told, NOT ONE, project caught the attention of our trying to make a TRUE , “let’s go to the mainstream, as opposed to ghettoise” ourself film. The last one made in that genre was American Desi, but that was before we were organized. Bend it and Monsoon of course did not need our assitance, since they had solid backing and rightly so.
All that changes with a movie releasing two days from now- Friday, May 4, 2007.
We were involved with Americanizing Shelley, from day one and the concept because of the following reasons:
(a) Namrata Singh Gujral – Other than being a lead producer and actor in the film, she along with Nagesh Kukunoor have the best attitude one can have this side of the Atlantic. In that both are not cry babies. I am sick of defensive and self pitying filmmakers saying sob stories (”I had no cash, the big boys are bad, etc, etc). My response- Dude you have gotten in this line and want to make a film, not because someone put a gun on your head, it is because, YOU WANT TO DO IT and ARE PASSIONATE, so get on with it…make the means. 99.99% of all reastaurant staff and 7/11 staff in Los Angeles are film aspirants…they don’t cry…they get on with it!!!
(b) Aim Big- Americanizing Shelley(AS), is as much for Middle Mainstream America, as it for the South Asians. It does not just say so, it does so. Hence Country Western and Steve Azar goes hand in hand with Munnabhai MBBS, south asian Shaheeh Khan shares screen space with caucasian Will Wheaton (of Star Trek) and of course my favorite performance in the film by african american, Ronreaco Lee. Oh and least I forget, the director, Lorraine, of Sopranos, Dynasty, etc. Also the actors from 24.
(c) It comes from a studio system: (albeit a new one), but then Miramax, New Line, etc all started off as new…The studio being American Pride Films Group….again, “don’t think small, think big…..”
(d) It aims to please: By now you must have realized that I am all for entertaining films…does not mean funny films, Crash entertained, Traffic entertained, Black Friday entertained…..but for heavens, a boring film is a boring film is a…..Call me flaky, call me a party monger, but I am apologetic about the need for ALL films to entertain. We are not in the business of home video, this is mass communications. The script, the songs, the setting of AS attempt all of that.
Now for the purists in this group (and I am not one)- It is going to Cannes in May 2007 (aka this month), it did phenominally well at the San Diego and Nashville film festival It’s a mainstream player with mainstream aspirations and a South Asian soul…..and who as a proud South Asian and a proud American, I see no folly in that…in fact more power to it for that.
Will it be a hit or a flop I don’t know and I don’t care.
What I do know is that it has taken a bold move forward and I am all for that. I call it the Deepak Chopra, the Shekhar Kapur, the Mohini Bhardwaj, the Bobby Jindal, the Sunita Williams of films, it is not running away, but towards the mainstream
Oh and just by the way – watch for the credits, you might just see the familiar name of YOUR’s TRULY in it (more for operational help)
More info:
OPENS Friday, 04 MAY:
AMC Shirlington7 2772 South Randolph St,
LA/ OC METRO
AMC Block 30 20 City Boulevard West,
SF/SAN JOSE METRO Cinemark Century Berryessa
1171 North Capitol Avenue,
NASHVILLE METRO Carmike Thoroughbred 20 633 Frazier Drive,
(Theaters may be added or replaced in the coming weeks. Please refer to www.AmericanizingShelleyTheMovie.com for up-to-date theatre info)
In the vein of “Bend It like Beckham,” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” “Americanizing Shelley” is a contemporary “Pygmalion”-like comedy, set in LA, featuring an American country boy and a Himalayan village belle, thrown together in this “Middle America” meets “
Vivek “I’m not about Cannes/Oscars/Festivals/ give me Jackie and Akshay and Tom and Namrata any day, Burbank and Versova is my Cannes” Kumar Tags: Theater
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
“all white people sound the same to me”
“tell me about it sister ”
:-)
Vivek…When you say backing..what exactly do you mean? Is it just promoting the movie or anything more…If promoting what exactly is the role of SAFAA in it?
Good to hear the things SAFAA is doing …:)
Om…No financial backing was done by me, cause I don’t have the means (although one fine day I will reveal the budget of this film and it will shock everyone…how effieciently it was made). In fact I failed in getting them funding in the meetings that I did organize in Silicon valley. Plus for first timers, I expect them to have the largest stake in the game themselves, before anyone else should/can commit. Hence Nagesh, went back to his consulting work, saved the $35K for which he made HB and Namrata, put in a lot of her equity, of course then the investors came on board.
My/SAAFA input were the following: (a) Assisting in organizing the investors meeting (paperwork, space, logistics, etc)
(b) Helping procure the castings
(c) Recommending on crew (eg we told her not to take a desi director), of course the final decision was her’s
(d) Recommending on casting (both in the US and India, only limited to South Asian talent)
(e) Helping in procuring Daler Mehandi’s brother (not Mikka) for one of the songs
(f) Advising on the taxation and money flow when the deal was inked with I Dreams
(g) Advising her on cities and theaters that may make sense, helping to secure the San Jose venue
(h) Overall being there emotionally for the filmmakers
(i) Helping in organizing the press screenings in SF/NY?/DC and to an extent LA
(j) Assisting in getting coverage in the Desi Press (aka Anokhi Vibe, Desi Club, etc)
(k) Advising on countries/regions, purely from a South Asian perspective
(l) Helping grassroots word spreading in Bay Area, NY, DC, LA for both pre release and pre festival showing….we only concentrated on South Asian Americans, since that is our core competency
(m) Organizing a couple of radio slots for talk shows here in the Bay Area
(n) Being the objective voice aka if something sucked…to tell them it sucks at the cost of losing their friendship…but that is how we are and will be
Hope that answers
Good work Vivek!
More power to people like you who are actually doing something, unlike most of us who just talk….talk ..& talk some more
cheers!
Wow..that is awesome…helps me vivek. Good job man.
I thought nagesh made HB in 17 lac rupees….
Note: ooops my bad didnt realise $35K is almost equal to 17lac rupees grrrrrrrrr