The 0ne Rupee Novella - Part 1

Perfect Cinema, where are you?
Where are you the cinema of Pure Images,
Pure Sounds…
Is there anything new at all?
A refreshing frame like a sunny morning during our winters
Or a tune that makes you see a moonlit valley of our autumns…

May be he was thinking. He thinks a lot, at least a lot more than he decides to imply. Taking a decision has always been so tough may be because he knows, the execution is going to be tougher. In an old town by the river, where no one can say whether it’s 2012 or 1932, standing on the stairs of a ghat at least 100 years old, finally he could make up his mind.

- I’ve decided
- What?
- I’ll make a film
- So, what were you doing all these days?
- No, not like that. A feature length film I mean.
- So, finally you father-in-law has decided to become a film producer I guess (giggles).
- You are not taking things seriously enough. Don’t you know me?
- (Laughter) OK. OK. Then?
- I don’t know, I just made up my mind and I’m not going to think about money right now. There must be a way.
- Fine, but what’ll be there in your film?
- You mean content? Story?
- Not that. I mean Sex.
- Fuck yourself!

- You don’t get it dude. Independently produced films do require naked women. It’s what the market demands.

They start moving towards home. They have a scooter kind of non-macho thing that no one would like to ride ever. It looks disgusting

- No, I know, but we’ll need a lot of money to hire such a woman. She’s going to cost me a three and a half feature length films of mine
- But, you’ll be rich, man. Just imagine – New york, Sundance, Seattle, Paris, Berlin, Budapest
- Ya, righto ! London, Athens, Chicago, Oakland --- Step into reality sometimes sucker. We won’t even be left with the money to submit at BYOFF
- Why? Ask your girlfriend to pose nude. Surely she can do this much for a piece of art.
- Sit on my lap, asshole! I’m going to ask your mom --- Auntiji, we are producing some art piece. Please untie your brassiere and pose nude in front of the camera.
- No, seriously
- Yes, seriously. Here’s your home. Get inside and stay there.

The other guy gets down and pokes with a vulgar expression on his face while the filmmaker seems to be deadly serious and sickened with the sick jokes of his friend.

- Did you mind? (The friend says with a giant smile. Evidently he is making faces now)
- No. Do I mind ever? I know that you’ve been a roaring psycho since your very birth.
- Come on man, It was just a joke
- Whatever! Just get lost! We’ll have a serious talk tomorrow morning

Without awaiting a reply, the filmmaker starts his scooter and starts to think again.

Time… why does it always seem to be like a road?
Why do the incidents occur, one after another, in such awful linear way?
Space…why do you tend to get filled so easily with vague objects?
Uncontrolled… Who is going to explain these patterns?
They seem so obvious!

(Please share this post or re-share it on your blog to help us with the fundraising. Visit the LFEBF Blog for the proper format. Thanks)

The 'One Month' Post

It has been one month since we started raising funds for the 0ne Rupee Film. As you've read before, the campaign was started on the 25th of February at BYOFF, Puri. So, it's one month now, but not 30 days yet. In these 29 days, we've been through a lot. We got 8 articles on different newspapers, websites and blogs. We could successfully collect a sum of  INR 20,352.83 /- from more than 50 people. Although this is actually less than 10% of the minimum requirement but not a bad month really.

We are planning to start shoot in April, expectantly on the 14th and we'd start posting the novella on this blog from the 2nd. Again, if you feel like please share the posts with some basic information about this project on your blog. It'd help us in fund-raising. The more people is reached, the more fund is raised --- that is how it has been with crowd-funded projects always.
We have already come to know that some people are waiting for our promotional mails, press kits and the novella to start working in favour of this project. Sorry for the delay. We don't have a big team to get everything done in a super-organized way. Neither do we have any previous experience with these kinds of campaigns. We are learning, and what we've learnt till date is your support means a lot to us. That's the magic wand capable of doing wonders.

Thank you
We need you
Hope you'll stand by us

The Story Behind It

The truth is, I'm an idler. Although I was suffering from fever since we were back from Jadavpur and then something happened to my broadband connection (I was able to access internet using my dongle) they just don't stand up as good alibis for not posting on the blog since the 13th. It's been 9 days without writing. The feverish feel didn't even let me feel how fast time flies by when one is not working.

On the 19th evening (or may be night), in the month of February, at around 22:30 hrs. when I told Mr. Gurpal Singh "Gurpal ji, bahat ho gaya, abhi feature banani hai. Logon se ek ek rupiyaa leke suru karne ka socha hai [It has been enough, now I want to make a feature. I thought of starting it by putting a demand of one rupee to everyone]" Sriparna and Surya were there in front of Chakrateertha House, Puri, Orissa and I was quite astonished that I've actually said it. Before that, the idea was shared only once with Sriparna. Gurpal replied smilingly, like he does on every occasion, 'well, it's a great idea but is there anyone here who believes that you won't spend those one rupees on fags and boozes. See, there have been many people in the last years, coming up with ideas like these, collecting money for making film and afterwards none of them were traceable neither their films." --- This reply is what made me feel the necessity of starting this blog.

Four hours before that, I was sitting in a train, Howrah-Puri Duronto Express, at seat no.2. Beside me there was a guy on no.1, named Mr. Abhayanand Pathak. Sriparna, her mom and my mom were on Seat no. 3, 4 and 5. Between us there was the passage, so, I really had no option but to chat with this aged friend of mine when he started talking. Normally I don’t like explicitly religious people, but this time it was different. I felt a touch of wisdom in his words. He speaks a lot (I mean when he starts). Soon I discovered that he is one of the uncles of actor Vinay Pathak. So we talked a bit about Vinay’s performances in different films. Mr. Pathak said that he is a poet and he has two books to his creddit. So, we moved on to poetry and he said he is not a regular poet. He does not understand poetry; rather he tries to understand his religion and the world through his poems. I said, one doesn’t need to understand poetry really, that must be left to the academicians and critics. One must understand oneself to write or compose. Thus, philosophy and religion occupied the central thread of this conversation. Mr. A.N Pathak is one of those guys who say Hey Ram even while yawning. But I, somehow, did not really have any problem to carry on chatting with the Bihari Pandit Brahmin. I myself came to know that I ‘m a Kankubji Brahmin and not a Gaudiya one. Later on, he told me a story of a writer he met at Kurla station. He saw this guy in a bit untidy white shirt and black trousers, asking for one rupee from everyone on the platform. He came in to the waiting room, approached a man sitting next to Mr. Pathak. That man replied negative in a rudely manner and then turned to Mr. Pathak and said “Look at this poor guy. He has learnt this much English only to become an unconventional beggar. What’s becoming of this country”. Mr. Pathak did not reply. He silently started to follow this unconventional beggar and wanted to know the reason of his begging. The man told him that he is a writer. He has written a novel and now he is raising funds as he does not have enough money to publish it.





Yes, it’s an idea copied from somewhere else. I don’t know the name of this writer (I wish I had) but his way can prove to be fruitful for us. Till date, as a forum, LFEBF has produced 14 short films and two feature length films since 2008 out of which 12 shorts and two features were released in three compilations in three consecutive years. Do you know another forum in this country which has been this much consistent? Do you know a filmmaker in India who did take up no-budget as a serious method of film production before or by the year 2008? And when you visit the websites on so-called “Indian Independent Films and Filmmakers” how many times do you find mentions of these works there? Except producing a feature there’s another aim behind starting this fund-raising that is the process itself works as a campaign. This is a good form of no-budget promotion. But some of these so-called ‘devotees’ of “Indian Independent Film” are not even spending a single word on this project. Moreover, some of them are not even responding or replying while communicated with proper information. Where is the problem, can you tell me? Is it with Bengal? Is it with the forum? Or is it with the No-Budget method? I mean if everyone knows us or keeps on following us on facebook why do they become misers when it comes to sharing or writing something about some honest and off-the-track initiative?

Recently my latest film Memories… of a Dead Township (2012) was reviewed by Dr. Ian McCormick. Dr. McCormick also interviewed me via email and posted it to his blog. It’s something adequate to make us happy but we’d have been happier if the review was written or the interview was taken by some Bengali friend of ours, or at least by someone from India.



Thanks to Dr. Ian McCormick and everyone who’s reading, sharing, talking about this blog/project/initiative or the forum. Thanks to all the contributors who helped us reach the threshold of 19k within one month.



The truth is not only that I’m an idler but I belong to a community full of slackers and idlers I believe.

Trends

Depression is like cloud, you know what I mean if you are a sensitive man.
I came across another talented friend of mine today who seemed to be in a mood of a quarrel. These kinds of friends, see, I used to have a lot of them before. They will never do what they should have been doing. They would opt for a job at some office and curse the society for being so cruel. They'd curse their social and economic whereabouts for everything i.e the obstructions of becoming a popular artiste. But it's actually them who decided to sign the papers because they felt insecure at a point of time.
If you know what you are doing and who you are inside, is there a reason to get distracted like that, my friend? Lack of confidence and recognition can make feel a mediocre artiste that he is somebody like Rimbaud or Artaud, only if people could get it! Gosh!
What's there in recognition? If you are all for work why should you care at all? No matter what, just keep on working, use your brain and muscles and don't become jealous of anyone around.
Analyze, won't you?

Whatever, let's come to the point, if you are subscribed to the Facebook page you must have already come to know that the figure now stands at INR 12,908.15 /-  but what you don't know yet is that the highest individual contribution is Rs. 2500. Let's see who's going to break it and donate 5k for the first time.

Our first identified donor from another country is Ginnetta Correlli, a filmmaker friend. Her generosity was soon found in another filmmaker friend named Jason Marsh. We are thankful to them, we think their contributions would motivate others in other parts of the world too.

Be it Re.1 or Rs.1006 people are contributing for real. It's not one month yet since we started at BYOFF on the 25th of February and we're almost at 13k already. May we call it overwhelming, the response? Now we have a reason to be confident and announce, Yes, We'll Start Shooting this April. Now, whichever comes first, 20k or the first shoot, We'll start posting the story-line in the form of a novella, post by post, serially. Friends, asking again, do you have a blog where you can share the novella with some basic information on this project to help raise funds more effectively? --- We think we'll have MAM (Mad About Moviez) beside us. Are you too MAD, about MOVIEZ? Join hands, let's make it happen for the sake of the pure madness

An Update on Irregularity

My blog posts are becoming irregular. I thought of posting at least once everyday but that's quite an office-job really. I don't even know who reads this blog, yes, of course I find that view-counter to cross 40 everyday, but who are the readers? Are you one of them? I was preparing the list of contributors today, guess it'd be ready to upload by tomorrow. The morning started well when a new friend compared this project with Abraham's 'Amma Aryan'. I was like 'pardon me, but I'm not that great, are you mad etc'. Then in the afternoon the awesome-st incident till date happened when my bank notified me about two transactions. One is of 1.17 INR and the other one is of 1.12 INR. What I found to my astonishment is that there are no names attached. It was written "Global Remittance" where the names should have been. I still don't know who they are., but I guess these are the first two contributions from non-Indians via online transfer. People of other nationalities have already contributed to this project during BYOFF but this occurrences proved that even foreigners and NRIs can contribute just 1 Re via internet though it's not recommended for them. It is also not recommended for people who work at MNCs or own Credit cards etc. Why not? --- well, I'll write about that in my next post, probably tomorrow --- Why I'm recommending some people to contribute more than the specified minimum contribution of  Rupee 1 and in spite of that why still there is the option to donate as minimum as One Rupee

BYOFF, 2012 - The fest where I started it

Moi, Un Mendiant (With Sriparna Dey)...                       

                                                 

I launched the campaign on the closing day of this years' BYOFF. Thanks to Mr. Gurpal Singh who kept on encouraging me to go for it throughout the festival. If he was not that pushy I don't know whether I'd have started the campaign there (as I thought earlier) or not. Actually I was quite depressed due to a lot of things. During the presentation of my film, in his introductory speech, Mr. Singh all of a sudden started speaking about the campaign. Surprisingly, an old man of around 60 years (pure guess!) took out a 100 rupee note from his wallet and said, "Here is your one rupee. Come take it." That is precisely how it all started on the 23rd of February, 2012.

On 24th, I was feeling enthusiastic enough to run and get some print outs etc for the campaign but again, I lost all the energy by the evening. Mr. Singh probably could guess it. He came again to inspire me while I was just drinking beer out of nothing, sitting inside a cottage or something like that. He asked me whether I've started collecting the money or not. I thought damn man, what am I doing! Am I going to do it or not!

The feeling kept on being felt till I rushed to the open stage to make an official announcement on the evening of the 25th. Not that everyone accepted it with open mind but all's well that ends well. I gathered Rs. 2,444 by the end of the festival. This initiative also got mentions on the BYOFF coverages of Midday, Long Live Cinema and Dear Cinema.

The fundraising did begin finally!
Hoof!