This year Bollywood saw several new things — women-centric movies, hinterland locales and the emergence of new filmmakers. Directors, producers and ad makers tell Shrabasti Mallik and Arjita Mishra that these trends will only grow and prosper in the coming year and content-driven films will be successful, with or without big stars
Prahlad Kakkar
According to Kakkar, 2015 saw lot of ups and downs in the industry. The ad maker feels confident that the new line of movies where women protagonists have rules, will continue to grow and evolve in 2016.
“Things will become bigger and better and filmmaking will change. Women will finally be on a pedestal as a man and such films will be made more,” he added.
He also pointed out that the Government can make create a good relationship with countries through films. “It can also help in the growth of economy,” he said.
He pointed out that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) cut out several scenes from several movies. “And when the directors and producers asked the reason why, they did not feel the need to answer them,” he added.
There was no stopping him. He continued, “In 2016, the situation had to be improved because Arun Jaitley, Union Finance Minister, had said in a statement that the CBFC is just a board, whose job is to certify a film on the basis of its content. To cut or censor anything in the movie is not their job. If a filmmaker decides to fit into a category and the CBFC thinks otherwise, then he will make the cuts on his own. The Censor Board is not supposed to tell creatives what to do and what not to do.”
Sumeet vyas
He has been on both sides of the camera — as an actor in movies and as a scriptwriter for the Internet’s popular web series Bang Baaja Baraat. He feels that there is a huge scope of web series and believes that it is going to be the next big thing that will reign in the coming year. “Why notIJ It has no restriction in terms of age and people take genuine interest in these,” he said. He also mentioned that today, the younger generation doesn’t watch TV or daily soaps. Most of their time they watch online content. Vyas also added that the Indian audience watch popular TV series like Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, Friends, et al. So you cannot fool them by showing them anything. A certain standard is expected of any web series. “The audience is also increasing in number because earlier, the urban population was very small but now it has increased. Therefore I think it’s a good time for people to watch a web series,” he said.
When asked about the difference between film, daily soaps and web series, he said, “It is not really different. As an actor, you do the same thing but writing wise, especially in a web series, there is a little change because they are episode-based stories so every episode must have a hook in the end so that people keep watching.”
He also explained to us that the writing method is different. For web series, a writer has to write five, six or ten episodes because it has a definite beginning and an end to it, unlike TV shows which do not have an end.
Tigmanshu Dhulia
Being one of the most famous directors of the country, Dhulia has always had a tryst with the Censor Board and he had no qualms in expressing his thoughts. “Censorship bekar ki cheez hai (it is useless). It should not be there, there should be certification which I think is coming up.” He shared his personal experience with the censor board and said, “Personally, I have faced a lot of problems with CBFC and they tend to irritate me a lot with their illogical acts.”
The director of Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster and Bullet Raja added, “Certain amount of censorship should be there, I feel, so as to avoid hurting the subtle and delicate sentiments of the myriad religion and community of the country.”
Zeishan Quadri
We asked actor-director Zeishan Quadri and he told us more. “The year has been really good,” he said, “There were many movies which released this year which were really high on content,” and rattled Bajirao Mastani, Masaan and Meeruthiya Gangsters as examples.
Quadri believes that the New Year will belong to independent filmmakers. “Because they will do what they want to do, no matter what,” he said and elaborated the point with his directorial venture Meeruthiya Gangsters. “I made it with no stars but got actors, because I did not have that big a budget. It is a real story with performers who were as real as it could ever get,” he explained.
A movie does not always need a star to become successful, the script can do that alone. He said that for an independent director, it is difficult to get a star on board and also difficult to find a producer because there is also the question of recovery. He said, “This will increase in 2016 because the focus has already shifted to content and it is perhaps the best place for new directors to be. There can be no sensible movie without demand.”
However, he told us that with more creative people taking to the medium to express themselves, there will be more realistic movies in 2016. “With that, one will also see new directors tapping the unexplored places within the country. A movie like Manjhi could not have been shot in a city orPiku could not have been shot in Maharashtra. Everything has become interrelated, just the way it should be,” he said.