INTERVIEW
Sethumadhavan Napan is the COO of DAR Media/DAR Motion Pictures, a renowned production house that has backed movies like The Lunchbox, D-Day and, most recently, Madhuri Dixit Nene’s Bucket List¬. He speaks to Guardian 20 about the business side of the film industry, the emerging trend of crowdfunding movies, and how Bollywood producers have now started backing quality content.
Q. DAR Motion Pictures has produced offbeat movies that won critical acclaim on the global stage, like The Lunchbox, Ugly, and D-Day among others. What inspired your decision to support content-driven cinema? A.
This has been a constant endeavour of ours right from the start and we are proud of the films that we’ve been associated with so far. Whenever we feel that a particular concept has some novelty to it and also shows signs of commercial viability, we definitely show interest in the same. Going forward, our plan is to balance contentdriven and slightly unconventional themes along with some straightforward entertainers which have strong commercial prospects.
Q. Your most recent production was Madhuri Dixit Nene’s Marathi Debut, Bucket List. How did this collaboration happen, and what was it like working on it? A.
It feels terrific for us to be associated with Madhuri Dixit Nene’s first ever Marathi film, an achievement that we are proud of. The director, Tejas Deoskar, had a simple concept in his mind and his ideal choice for the lead role was Madhuri. We felt that the concept had potential and should be developed into a full-length screenplay. And soon we set about the process of reaching out to Madhuri herself and after seeing her initial response we knew that this was indeed a film worth backing.
Q. As a production house, do you think it is important to support regional cinema? If yes, how can production houses help? A.
Yes, we certainly feel that regional cinema needs all the support possible. Not only are some truly fantastic concept-driven films emerging in regional film industries, there is also the possibility of so many of these wonderful regional films getting a Hindi adaptation later on. We have always been supporting Marathi cinema— our first ever production was in Marathi in fact, Mahesh Manjrekar’s Lalbaug Parel, which also had a Hindi ver- sion, City of Gold. Bucket List is our fourth Marathi film. We are now about to enter the southern markets, starting soon with films in Tamil and Telugu. Other Mumbai production houses are also doing their bit, Dharma Productions, Eros International, Reliance Entertainment and a few others are trying to support regional cinema in their own ways.
Q. The commercial viability of any film project is an important factor in deciding its future. But do you think independent filmmakers tend to suffer because of this emphasis on business and profitability? A.
Yes, commercial viability of a project is very important. Eventually, filmmaking is not just a creative process but also essentially a busi-
“While crowdfunding as a phenomenon has existed in the past as well, it is only of late that it has caught on as an activity in an organised fashion.”