The morning of a release day for a filmmaker is usually filled with hope, excitement and anxiety about the audience’s response. But for director Kanu Behl, it was marked by struggle and disillusionment. After a wait of almost two years, Behl’s Agra released on Friday on 70 screens across the country. The filmmaker criticised multiplexes on social media over the film’s showcasing. “We’re being denied shows because small films ‘don’t fit into’ multiplex chain programming,” he wrote on X.

On a call with mid-day, Behl shared his frustration over the relentless fight he had to put up until the day before the release. “Till the last minute, we were told [by theatres], ‘We’ll figure, but nothing [happened],” he said.

When told that only four shows were available in Mumbai on the opening day, Behl pointed out the irony. “On Thursday night, we held a screening in Bengaluru. We had to turn away people because it was houseful. We got a standing ovation. I did around 12 pre-release screenings in India and at least 10 were with aam janta. It played to packed halls,” he said.

Agra has also gained recognition on global platforms, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival 2023. The anticipation was heightened because this is Behl’s theatrical comeback after the 2015 acclaimed Titli. It’s why the cold response of theatrical stakeholders has alarmed Behl — not for himself but for the future of young filmmakers.

“If this is their treatment of a film that opened at Cannes, I shudder to think what younger filmmakers and the next generation will go through. Then they [multiplexes] turn around and say, ‘Aisi filme chalti nahi hain.’ And those they run across 2000 screens, play to empty theatres. So when is this system going to change?”

Behl shared that releasing a film on the big screen is becoming a mental health crisis for independent filmmakers. “The illusion that multiplexes were there to accommodate all kinds of films is long gone. Now it is just about fighting for survival. But I am not going to fight for survival anymore. Either this system has to work or I’m out. I don’t want to do this anymore. How long will a filmmaker fight? This is a larger mental health issue within the industry. This happened with All We Imagine As Light and Sabar Bonda. It will keep happening,” he lamented.

Unless, the audience proves the decision makers wrong, Behl said. Even though the director never believed in putting the onus on the audience to make a film breathe on the big screen, this time he could only look towards the viewers for some hope. Behl said that if Agra doesn’t find audience support, he would quit filmmaking.

“I really want to reach out to the audience and say, ‘It’s in your hands. You come and watch this film and show these guys how much money a film like this can earn or I'm quitting filmmaking. Mujhe nahi karna. I cannot struggle anymore. I will not keep pushing anymore. I will leave filmmaking. (In any other scenario) I would never put this sort of a responsibility on the audience. It's not their responsibility. It is of the gatekeepers. It is these guys who should be doing their job. But in the absence of that, I think the responsibility finally comes upon the audience, including me. This has to be a protest and some sort of a coming together for the audience. So, if there’s only one show available, it should run houseful. If the audience wants to give them an answer and tell them what it wants, this has to come out of the social media echo chamber. Only that will wake these guys up.”

Shouldn’t the industry also unite against the crisis, we asked the filmmaker. The industry would never do it, he replied. “Because they are a cabal. They're a mafia. They all have their families. They all have the kids within the families to protect. It is an incestuous sort of mafianess. So they are not going to move,” he said.

“Difficult, disheartening, and sometimes depressing” — that’s how Kanu Behl describes his last two years as he fought to bring Agra to Indian theatres. This, even though the Rahul Roy, Priyanka Bose, and Mohit Agarwal-starrer won wide praise at the Cannes Film Festival 2023. Now, the drama is finally arriving in Indian cinemas on November 14. 

Behl’s jubilation is evident when he, over a phone call, tells us, “It was such a long and hard battle. We all know the state of independent cinema now. To finally get here where the film will meet its real audience is an indescribable feeling of joy.”

Finding a distributor that could put faith in the story — of a sexually repressed man in the context of India’s space crunch — was the struggle. Eventually, Saregama Films came on board as the distributor. Behl, who has written the story with Atika Chohan, shares, “It was a daily battle. If you’re trying to make a difficult film, you need to have strong collaborators from the production point of view.”

Film banners apart, the director has another collaborator in mind — the government. He believes it’s imperative for the government to sponsor a distribution channel so that independent films can thrive in Indian cinema.

He says, “The top five or 10 films that come through festivals should get government support. There must be a quality check. If a film clears that, the government must mandate a certain number of screens for its release. It also needs to give tax breaks so that the audience has an incentive to watch that film as opposed to the next blockbuster playing in the next screen.”

Agra is coming to theatres a month after a slew of indie films, from Jugnuma to Sabar Bonda, released on the big screen. Does it seem like a shift? “I hope it’s a shift,” asserts Behl, before adding, “But I’ve seen this before. When I came out with Titli [2014], a lot of independent voices were emerging. Then there was a lull. So, I’m happy about all of these films, but I’m also wary because I don’t see a sustainable system. I hope we all can create a system for independent films.”

Having one’s feature screen in the prestigious section of Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival is a matter of pride. But to director Kanu Behl, the upcoming première of Agra at the French Riviera is the means to an end. “The biggest reason for feeling good is because I know that the film is one step closer to reaching the audiences in India,” beams Behl, whose last feature film, Titli (2015), premièred at the Un Certain Regard section of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

Behl’s films are divorced from the mainstream, frothy offerings of Bollywood. This knowledge has come to him with the realization that his movies will need a festival endorsement to see the light of day in India.

“I am clearly not Bollywood. There is a certain kind of film that gets financed here through a certain structure. Unfortunately, there is no commercial structure for the cinema I subscribe to, and hope a certain audience would want to engage with. So, a film festival debut becomes a necessary component in the journey of such a movie,” he explains.

Starring Rahul Roy and Priyanka Bose, Agra is described as an exploration of sexual dynamics within a family. The director believes that the movie tackles an urgent subject.

“After Titli released, I asked myself, ‘What do I want to talk about?’ That’s when I realized there was a part of me, which I had felt over the years, but not expressed. Like me, I had seen a lot of young men who had felt this repression. It made me question the presence of sexuality and desire within our lives in the specific cultural context of our country.”

Veteran actor-filmmaker Lalit Behl, known for films like Titli (2014) and Mukti Bhawan (2016), died of Covid-19 related complications, his son, director Kanu Behl said. The 71-year-old actor was diagnosed with the Coronavirus last week.

Among those who mourned his demise was actor Adil Hussain who starred with him in Mukti Bhawan. Hussain tweeted: “Extremely saddened by the demise of one of my dearest and most respected Co-actors, Lalit Behl jee. Who, so brilliantly played the father in @MuktiBhawan! I feel the loss of my father again! Dear Kanu I am so very sorry for your loss!”

From left: Actor Lalit Behl, Ranveer Shorey, YRF’s Avtar Panesar, director Kanu Behl, actor Shashank Arora and Guneet Monga at a photo call for their film, Titli, at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival. Titli is the only Indian film in contention for an award at the fest. Pic/PTI - See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/do-b-town-filmmakers-really-benefit-from-the-cannes-film-festival/15321174#sthash.6z1M1UlI.dpuf

From left: Actor Lalit Behl, Ranveer Shorey, YRF’s Avtar Panesar, director Kanu Behl, actor Shashank Arora and Guneet Monga at a photo call for their film, Titli, at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival. Titli is the only Indian film in contention for an award at the fest. Pic/PTI - See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/do-b-town-filmmakers-really-benefit-from-the-cannes-film-festival/15321174#sthash.6z1M1UlI.dpuf

At the Cannes film festival that is currently underway, red carpet appearances by Indian beauties once again grabbed the headlines. Like every year, there has been a steady stream of delegates from B-Town who find themselves at the French Riviera — where they pose for pictures, if nothing else. This has been so because Cannes is not just about competition; the festival offers scope for exploring new markets and that’s a race our industrywallahs don’t wish to be left behind in. The fact remains that it has been more than six decades since an Indian film bagged the top honour there.

All of which begs the question: is all the brouhaha worth it in the end? Do filmmakers get decent returns after spending huge amounts on exhibiting their films at the festival in the non-competitive categories? Turns out the answers are not really straightforward. But there is an underlying hope to do better, regardless of the film’s fate.



Indian premieres
Dibakar Banerjee, co-producer of Titli, the only Indian feature film in contention for an award this year, doesn’t sound worried about the film’s business prospects — at least for now. “Films and their market are interlinked and festivals act as a medium between the two. That’s also why we thought Titli should premiere at Cannes. We feel that it’s the best possible launch pad for the film. It is in the competitive category so obviously, it’s going to attract the best possible distributors.”

The competition category does get more eyeballs although Indian films have peripheral channels too. Like setting up stalls at the festival and hoping to find interested parties and territories. That’s one of the reasons why run-of-the-mill films like Shortcut Romeo, Kites and Hissss manage to get screened.



Making waves
Not very long ago, there was a stigma attached to the film fest circuit. But there’s no doubt that now there’s a sudden rise in Hindi films being screened at film festivals.

Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely — which was screened at Cannes in 2012 — followed a slightly different route. Although the film hardly created waves upon its release in India, he managed to sell its theatrical rights in many territories, including the US, where the film will release on June 20, 2014. The film was also sold to distributors in Europe, including France and Eastern Europe as well as Latin America. Thanks to it screening at Cannes, Fortissimo Films sold the film in new markets such as Japan and Taiwan.

Ask him whether the hype about Cannes is for real and Ahluwalia chooses to play it safe. “I can’t comment on other films, but having Miss Lovely in the official competition category at Cannes was helped boost my film’s international sales. I would say that it was an essential platform for my film.”



Last year, DAR Motion Pictures, with films like The Lunchbox, Ugly and Monsoon Shootout, attended Cannes. All three ventures were premiered at the event although none were slated to win a major award. In such a scenario, business must be the motive, right? Wrong. According to Vivek Rangachari, producer at DAR, it’s too early to discuss profits. “It will take years before we talk about money. We have a long way to go before we stand shoulder to shoulder with international films. It won’t happen overnight anyway. Cannes might look like a glitzy event but it’s all about business. And that happens in the background with the sales agents, distributors and publicists from across the globe at work,” says Rangachari.

Wider reach
Director Anand Gandhi of The Ship of Theseus fame is currently working on his second cinematic venture, Tumbad. Interestingly, Ruchi Bhimani, the film’s producer, is at Cannes and she has an agenda on her mind; she’s scouting for suitable co-producers for the film. “The whole industry lands up there. The curiosity surrounding Indian films is recent and it has to be generated regularly because of the opportunities that lie ahead. It’s the same old question: How am I going to make my next film? Who’s going to watch it and how will I reach out to more people in different territories? Once you find people willing to back you, money is going to follow,” says Gandhi.

Obscure figures
Having shown three films at Cannes, including Bombay Talkies, Ugly and The Lunchbox, Anurag Kashyap is another regular at Cannes. He’s clearly in favour of the current trend. He believes that the event does help cinema — both art house as well as the commercial variety. “I don’t think the Cannes film festival is overrated. For instance, I don’t think people had any idea about how much business The Lunchbox did. Let me tell you that it’s much more than our mainstream films.”

Indeed, the latest buzz says that it has replaced Indonesian blockbuster The Raid 2 as the most profitable non-American film in the USA. But at the same time, getting the exact box office figures for this Ritesh Batra film has become quite a task.

Kashyap explains that when you sell a film’s worldwide rights to a distribution company, the company will exploit the film’s potential and they aren’t transparent about its collections. So we don’t get to read the exact figures. There are many companies that have their own overseas distribution houses. Why are they running them if these films are not making any money overseas? The answer is pretty simple. "They make money but they just don’t report the figures,” he says.

All about the business
Trade analyst Komal Nahta says that when production houses or filmmakers set up stalls at Cannes in a bid to lure international distributors, they end up shelling out a hefty sum of money. “It’s more of an investment for the future. If a film sells well, great. If not, it’s a loss for the makers. But that’s what this business is all about — it’s a gamble,” he says.

Then again, not all Indian films manage to get to Cannes, despite many makers trying their best to showcase their work there. Director Ajay Bahl knows a thing or two about it. His film, BA Pass, missed the deadline for Cannes last year. He eventually released the film in India instead of waiting for one more year. “Getting selected in the competitive categories is the way to go for any film — be it Indian or international. Setting up a stall to sell a film in international territories, on the other hand, could be a cumbersome task,” he says.

(with inputs from Asira Tarannum)

Dibakar Banerjee, producer of Titli

"I haven’t had the time to think about it. Maybe because it’s not an important issue."

Goutam Ghose, filmmaker

"It’s unfortunate because our films haven’t really matched the standards set by the Cannes jury. Of late, there have been many interesting Indian films but the question has always been the same: How rooted to Indianness are they?"

Buddhadeb Dasgupta, filmmaker

"There is no dearth of good films in our country but how many make it to Cannes, or for that matter, other international festivals? Maybe the required channels for such films are missing and that should be our concern."

Govind Nihalani, filmmaker

"To win an award at a film festival, your film should be in the competitive category. In the past few years, we’ve read about films travelling to Cannes, but I don’t think many were competing for awards. So winning anything big is out of the question."