Sohum Shah, the lead of Tumbbad and Maharani, explains why he decided to produce films. During his recent visit to Delhi, he shared, “Cinema ki ye khaas baat hai ki cinema rahega. Itni aafat aayi - piracy, satellite, OTT sab aa gaya, lekin cinema phir bhi hai. The community-watching experience of cinema cannot be replicated. I will always release my films in cinemas. After all, watching a film in a cinema is where it all started for me.” Excerpts from the conversation.

‘Meri jitni education hui hai, woh cinema se hui hai’
Talking about the impact films had on him and how they shaped his understanding of relationships and life, he says, "Mujhe nahi pata aisi film hoti hai toh aise bhai hote hain ya aise bhai hote hain toh aisi film hoti hai. Hum Aapke Hain Koun! dekh ke mujhe laga rishte aise hone chahiye. Mere bhi ek bade bhai thay, toh mujhe itna pyaar ho gaya unse. Hamari relationship itni majboot ho gayi.”

Sohum says that in the 90s', travelling to foreign country felt like something unimaginable to him.
He says, "Log panditji ko patri dikha ke puchhte thay videsh yatra ka yog hai kya? Dilwale Duhania Le Jayenge showed me how Europe is, those leather jackets, and that people drink beer in cans. It was a fascinating world. Meri jitni education hui hai, woh cinema se hui hai, aur Aamir Khan saheb mere guru rahe hain."

‘Mujhe OTT ke mercy pe nahi rehna hai’
Sohum says that as a producer, he will never choose to release a film on OTT when he can release it in theatres. He explains, "Mera ye hai ki mujhe OTT ke mercy pe nahi rehna hai. Main wohi filmein banaunga (the kind of films I want to be a part of) aur theatre mein lagaunga. Chalegi toh theek hai, nahi chalegi toh theek hai! Main meri property bech dunga, woh mujhe chalega, lekin mujhe OTT ke mercy pe nahi rehna hai."

What’s behind this love for releasing films in theatres?
He says, "Theatres are the seed that helped us reach this point. We watched those films and had the entire experience of watching them. When we watched films like Hum, I still remember the impact those dialogues had on us. I still remember all those lines."

Enacting a scene from Hum, where Amitabh Bachchan’s character screams Bakhtawar, Sohum asks, "Woh experience kaise laptop pe ya TV pe shift ho sakta hai? Jo shuruaat hui hai, cinema se hi shuruaat hui hai. Woh hamare conscious nahi, subconscious mind mein hai. Hamare blood mein hai!"

‘Tumbbad is my Mughal-e-Azam’
Sohum says that, according to him, Tumbbad is their Mughal-e-Azam. He explains, "Like we’ve heard so many stories about Mughal-e-Azam - that the diamonds were real and how the film was made with so much passion and love and took so long. In the same way, the bus you see in Tumbbad is an actual bus from the 1930s, the locks, the gates, the cinematography. If we missed one monsoon, we’d have to wait another year for rain. We did VFX in Sweden and background work in America. Humne bahut shiddat aur pyaar se banayi hai.”

He says that before they started shooting Tumbbad, there were already over five years of work behind it in terms of locations and sketchboards. "When I heard the script, I always had this trust that the film would reach somewhere. I had this trust because I felt the film was strong and unique."

Sohum elaborates, "Jo maine uss waqt socha tha ki filmon ka ek universe (prequels, sequels) ho sakta hai, woh ab ho raha hai."

Talking about the core of the story, he says, "We all know that greed is bad. But somewhere, we are all consumed by greed. And greed, not just in terms of money, but also jobs, cars, followers, validation- in all aspects, it's greed. If one takes a step back, they'd realize that most of us operate out of greed, and hence, the story of Tumbbad about greed becomes quite relevant."

‘Iss industry mein achha kaam karne wale log hi 8-10 hain’
He shares, "I never wanted to be a producer, I had no interest in becoming one. But the kind of films I want to act in, those films weren’t being made. Achha kaam ho nahi raha hai, iss industry mein achha kaam karne wale log hi 8-10 hain, baaki sab mediocre kaam ho raha hai. So, what do I do? When I don’t get good work, I felt like - all right, then I will make the kind of films I want to work in."

"Aamir Khan's 3 Idiots has had a huge impact on the lives of many people. I’d like to share an incident - once, I went to a doctor who told me she was in depression, but when she watched a Shah Rukh Khan film in the cinema, it helped her sail through. Cinema and stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan have contributed to pop culture in a huge way."

Sohum says that being both a producer and actor helps him understand each role better. He explains, "I don’t like holidays, I don’t like to travel, I don’t want to do anything but work - whether I’m acting or producing. I don’t know how to compartmentalize; balancing is a problem for me. I live in extremes. Mera sab kuch ek hai - actor-producer, sab ek hai."

SIDDHANT CHATURVEDI-STARRER, MUCH-AWAITED MARATHI SEQUEL TO GET BENEFIT OF NATIONAL CINEMA DAY

Tomorrow, most theatres across the country will sell tickets for just Rs. 99 as part of the National Cinema Day. This offer will be valid only on regular seats while the tickets of IMAX, 3D, 4DX and recliner class will be available between Rs. 130 and Rs. 199. As it has happened in the past, the audience, this time too, is going to come in hordes to cinemas due to the offer.

The biggest beneficiary of the offer will be the big Hindi release of the week, Yudhra. It stars Siddhant Chaturvedi, Malavika Mohanan and Raghav Juyal and is produced by Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar's Excel Entertainment. Ravi Udyawar of Mom (2017) is the director. The film was launched way back in 2021 and got stuck due to pandemic challenges. Also, a small part of the film was reshot to enhance its scale.

The film’s buzz is limited but has a youthful appeal. Thanks to the National Cinema Day offer, its shows are fast-filling. The film will open around Rs. 2-3 crores and it might even go higher if the demand increases as the day passes. If the reports are positive, Yudhra will be in a good position to score at the box office on Saturday and Sunday.

The other big film that will have an advantage is Navra Maza Navsacha 2. It is the sequel to the cult Marathi film Navra Maza Navsacha and stars Sachin Pilgaonkar, Ashok Saraf, Supriya Pilgaonkar and Swwapnil Joshi. The demand for the film is tremendous. Many shows across Maharashtra are already sold out and theatres are increasing the film's shows to cope up with the demand. It will surely have a huge opening and it won’t be a surprise if it opens better than Yudhra.

The other Hindi release of the week is Kahan Shuru Kahan Khatam, which marks the debut of Dhvani Bhanushali. Transformers One and Never Let Go are the Hollywood releases. All these films will also get an audience due to the offer of National Cinema Day.

The holdover releases like Tumbbad and Stree 2 will have an added advantage thanks to National Cinema Day. Even the shows of The Buckingham Murders are going full and hence, its eighth day might be around Rs. 90 lakhs-Rs. 1 crore, which will be a good sign.

 

RE-RELEASE SEASON CONTINUES; TUMBBAD EXPECTED TO GIVE NEW RELEASES TOUGH COMPETITION

Finally, after nearly a month, a mainstream Hindi film would be up for release – The Buckingham Murders. It stars Kareena Kapoor in the lead and it also marks her first film as a producer. It is directed by Hansal Mehta and is the story of a cop with a tragic past trying to solve a murder case. Kareena looks apt for the role and with Hansal as its director, it can be a film to watch out for. Interestingly, it is releasing in the original Hinglish version as well as the dubbed Hindi version.

Sadly, the buzz for The Buckingham Murders is very low. There’s hardly even any awareness about the film. Hence, the opening will be poor and hopefully, with good word of mouth, it’ll pick up considerably.

The film that would make the most noise this week is Tumbbad. It was released in 2018 and did a business of just Rs. 12.14 crores. Over the years, it achieved a cult following. Interestingly, the film has vanished from the internet and now, the only way to watch it is in cinemas when it re-releases tomorrow. In 2018, it had an opening of Rs. 51 lakhs. This time, it seems like it’ll have double the opening as the advances are encouraging and many shows are fast-filling. A theatre like Cinepolis, Viviana Mall, Thane is playing as many as 14 shows of the film, which is unheard of for a re-released film!

The other surprise re-release is Tujhe Meri Kasam. It was the debut of Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia Deshmukh. Many are not aware that it never got a release on OTT, TV or DVD and has a cult following in certain towns of Maharashtra. It has got limited shows and there’s curiosity among a tiny section of the audience for this film as they want to know why this film is watched 4, 5 and even 6 times by some people.

Veer-Zaara’s re-release caught attention and it now remains to be seen how it fares. Finally, the Hollywood film Speak No Evil has a limited release and will need positive reports to sustain.

On OTT, Sector 36 would drop on Netflix. It stars Vikrant Massey and Deepak Dobriyal and is produced by Dinesh Vijan's Maddock Films and Jio Studios. The awareness is limited but it got a great response at a film festival recently. Hence, it can be expected to get huge viewership.

Ship Of Theseus director Anand Gandhi talks of Emergence, his work-in-progress piece since 2015, which he is eerily seeing play out in reality
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; July 12, 2020)

Anand Gandhi has been thinking about "a virus" for as long as he has been making movies. A concrete thought made an appearance in The Ship Of Theseus, his 2012 critically acclaimed film, where he questioned the idea of the alien microbes living in our body, and again in Tumbbad, 2018, a film he set in 1918, the year that the Spanish Flu struck India. "The genre of horror, especially zombie stories, have often been used to tell stories of the pandemic. In the US, these movies are backed by the Centre of Disease Control," he reveals.

Gandhi is also an innovator, systems researcher and co-creator of ElseVR, India's first virtual reality (VR) platform. He is also the founder/CEO of the Mumbai-based new media studio and systems think tank Memesys Culture Lab. It's even more reason to discuss viruses and pandemics now given the Coronavirus outbreak that the world is struggling with. Interestingly, since as early as 2015, Gandhi has been working on Emergence, a film surrounding a virus. The story follows four scientists, as they race against time to fight a pandemic that's threatening to destroy the world.

When we probe the genesis of Emergence, Gandhi says it started with him asking the "Who am I, where do I come from and what I am supposed to do?" questions. "It's the stuff children ask, and philosophers don't answer. I looked for answers in spirituality and history. Then, later, as the questions became more comprehensive, I started looking into evolutionary biology and cognitive sciences. All my previous movies have had hints of the question, what is human identity? We are not monolithic entities, we live in a ecosystem. Not just around us, but inside us. Inside us, there are trillions of bacteria that don't share our genome."

"So, we are a colony of organisms. For example, the bacteria in our gut affects our mood—people who have bad gut health tend to suffer from stress and anxiety issues."

This triggered conversations and Gandhi began thinking about a movie about a virus that changes the way humans behave.

When he started writing Emergence, he says he gave it the working title, 2020. Something he now calls prophetic. He began to seek out and have conversations with public healthcare specialists from around the world. "The more I dug, and the more I developed the story [of Emergence], the more I realised that this was an eventuality. When it did happen, my reaction was paranoia. But we have to live with it. Pandemics are like the stars in the night sky. They started their life a long time go, but have begun to reveal themselves now."

The fact that the Coronavirus pandemic caught up with Gandhi is not reason for him to despair. He is working on the movie even now as you read this, adapting it to the current circumstances. It helps that now, he can get straight to the crux of the story, without handholding the audience on the concept. "It functions as a story of caution, but also as one that celebrates resilience. But the quest is the same as before—to answer the question, what is human identity?"

Gandhi believes that although the virus is forcing us to change, many are not going to, since human behaviour is hard wired. "These emotions have been carried over for centuries. So, there will still be those who believe that the earth is flat and that a vaccine is going against the will of God. The virus is pretty new that way," he says, adding that he does think a policy change will come about, though. "It's a punctuation event in our lifetime—so big that people will die. We need to get the death rates down and and get to a vaccine soon. We have to learn how to live with the virus, and know that this [large scale spread] could recur again."

He admits that he is a year too late, but he is also happy that what he spent time studying about and pontificating on, wasn't off the mark. "That's why, it matters."


Still from Tummbad


Still from Ship Of Theseus

Anand Gandhi to kickstart the big-budget project in 2021 with a Hollywood studio; the script revolves around a pandemic
Ankita Chaurasia (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 6, 2020)

Stock scenes of Indians praying in front of the Taj Mahal for redemption in superhero and apocalyptic films, like Independence Day and Armageddon, irked a 15-year-old Anand Gandhi so much that he vowed to change the narrative. For the last five years, the filmmaker has been developing a script that revolves around four frontline women scientists, superheroes in their own way, fighting a contagion. Titled Emergence, it explores the impact of microbiomes on the psyche.

“The idea came while working on Ship Of Theseus that tried to answer whether free will exists. I was intrigued to learn that microbiomes (bacteria in our body) play a significant role in our behaviour,” says Anand, whose next film Tumbbad was about how greed can possess and transform a person, much like a pathogen. “With Emergence, I’m taking the parasite-host relationship further.” He cites a parasitic fungus, Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis, that takes over an ant’s body, controls its mind and turns it into a puppet to perpetuate. Trying to focus more on science than fiction, Anand has roped in epidemiologist Larry Brilliant as Executive Producer, and host-parasite relationship scientist Shelley Adamo as advisor. “Larry spearheaded the team that eradicated smallpox and controlled polio.

Like a detective, he figures out the epicentre of a pandemic and calculates the R-naught of the contagion, which is a measure of how many people it can infect,” Anand says, adding that with Adamo’s advice, he has created a fictional microbe, which is a prion.

The script seems eerily prescient, now that a pandemic has brought the world to a standstill. “I started writing it five years ago, with the working title 2020. My script predicted the rise of right-wing politics, storage crisis for scientific data, paleomicrobe releasing from thawing of the Arctic and behavioral changes brought on by a pandemic. But there was so much research required that by 2017, the office joked that the film would have to be re-titled 2025,” Anand laughs, pointing out that futurists Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom, in their 2008 survey, had predicted a 60 per cent chance of over a million dying from a pandemic in this century. “The social implications and subsequent changes in the human species are a part of the narrative.” Has the outbreak changed his life? “I’m too privileged to complain. Besides, my team has been working out of our Goa office since two years.”

Anand is putting out video interviews, the latest one with Irrfan Khan, whom he met soon after Maqbool released. “My short film, Right Here Right Now, came around the same time. We drove to Pune once, and became friends over the years. That video is cathartic,” he says, adding that they had an unspoken pact that Irrfan would be in all his projects. “We explored possibility of his presence in Tumbbad before the final script and schedule changed things. He’d have been in Emergence too. I wish I had created something with him.”

Now, Anand will rework his script slightly as there is no need to define a contagion anymore. He plans to take Emergence on the floors next year. “The idea is not to make the first but the most well-researched film about a pandemic. It will be a big-budget project, we are collaborating with an American studio,” he says. How does he plan to shoot it amid restrictions? “A pandemic is the flipside of global mobility, but it won’t stop air travel. After studying the challenges, every industry will make its own social and physical rule-book to work around the situation, till a vaccine and a cure are found,” he concludes.

As he joins Abhishek Bachchan in stock market drama The Big Bull, Sohum Shah on juggling acting and production
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; October 26, 2019)

For Sohum Shah, giving his nod to The Big Bull was an easy decision. The actor says it was evident that the Abhishek Bachchan-fronted film — despite being set in the big, bad world of stocks and shares — is an "entertaining and engaging" fare. The actor plays a stockbroker in the finance drama that is reportedly based on Harshad Mehta. Ask him if his sensibilities as a producer play a role while greenlighting acting assignments, and Shah explains, "I try to see if the script offers something new to me as an actor. But most importantly, it should work [at the story level]. I try to gauge if I’m enjoying the script as an audience."

Having recently wrapped up the Delhi schedule of the Kookie Gulati-directed venture, he heaps praises on co-star Bachchan as he says, "Abhishek is focused when it comes to his work." While he is enjoying his time in front of the camera, Shah intends to resume his producer duties for his passion project, Tumbbad (2018). "We want to make a prequel or sequel of Tumbbad, but we haven’t cracked the story yet. We always wanted to make it as a franchise."

Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 8, 2019)

The year 2018 was about blockbuster films, like Badhaai Ho, AndhaDhun, Baaghi 2 and Simmba, and Sohum Shah’s widely acclaimed Tumbbad. The horror-drama went on to receive eight nominations at the 64th Filmfare Awards and won three, for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Sound Design. “The response to Tumbbad has been overwhelming. I got a text from someone who has seen it 52 times which makes the seven years spent on making it seem worthwhile today. But many on social media have also expressed their regret at not watching it on the big screen,” shares the actor-filmmaker who on October 12 will have a screening for a select few to celebrate one year of the film’s release.

The film was reportedly under consideration as India’s official entry to the Oscars last year. Eventually, Rima Das’s Village Rockstars made the cut. Any regrets? “I stand by the film’s message that greed has no limits. Every film has its own destiny and I am content with the love that Tumbbad receives even today,” he asserts, recalling that after its premiere in the Critics’ Week at Venice International Film Festival, one of the reviews stated that “Tumbbad looks like a universe that God created and forgot to put on the human map”. “That meant a lot to me,” he smiles, revealing that the film’s team is now exploring the idea of making a sequel or a prequel, but hasn’t cracked a story yet.

BOMBAY TIMES (June 24, 2019)

After successfully entertaining the audience with their films in the ’90s, Pooja Entertainment has signed talented filmmakers Rahi Anil Barve, Vijay Lalwani and Nitin Kakkar to build on their brand of high-on-entertainment and content-driven films. “Just like the game of chess, in showbiz, too, content is queen. In just one move, the game can change completely,” says Jackky Bhagnani, as he prepares to lead Pooja Entertainment into its next phase.

Nitin Kakkar says, “Working with Jackky has been a wonderful experience, and I am looking forward to my association with him. He is determined to back content-driven cinema, and after Filmistaan, I haven’t written anything on my own. I am excited for the film we are making because it will be written and directed by me.”

Rahi Anil Barve, who had directed Tumbbad, says, “After the tremendous response to Tumbbad by the audience and critics, I expected the banner to brief me on a similar genre. But Jackky’s willingness to explore unchartered territory pleasantly surprised me. A freehand to execute your vision is something that every filmmaker aspires for, and Jackky gives you that freedom by putting you at complete ease and believing in you.”

Speaking about his association with Jackky, Vijay Lalwani adds, “What I like about him is that he’s not just a warm and approachable person, but he also doesn’t flinch while backing ideas that are new and edgy. He doesn’t just put a project together, but he goes all out to manifest your vision. And that’s what makes his production house stand out for me.”

Jackky says, “Times have never been better for good content, and it excites me to see great work happening across mediums — be it films, digital or TV. In fact, it is heartening to see some of our films get massive organic hits on OTT platforms. That just goes to show that our connect with the audience has been intact over the years, and we hope that this bond gets stronger with our new line up.”