Idiots' Creations

Although we are not really sure whether it helps to post on this blog, we keep on posting and sharing things here whenever "what's next? how to reach more people" or a similar question comes to our mind.

Last night was a great night. The greatest thing about the night is that nothing really happened, except that we completed chopping the first look of our film and uploaded it on youtube. After 15 hours or so, now we got 200 hits, which is nothing. So, nothing really happened and that's the greatest part of it. You know, when nothing happens, absolutely nothing, "what's next? how to reach more people", this kind of a question comes to our mind and we open up this blog to post something here. We know it's not really going to help us though.

And when nothing happens, we get obsessed and keep on working more and more. That's the best part of it and that's why last night was a great night. If everything went alright AASHMANI JAWAHARAT (2013) would have released on the 1st day of this month. But nothing like that happened. So, you can guess that everything is not alright at all. We still need 99,000 rupees, and, needless to say, nothing is happening, no, really! So, we have made up our minds to release it on the 1st day of July. But, 99,000 rupees, it's a big amount for beggar-filmmakers (forget bakchodis like crowdfunding and all) like us! So, if nothing happens in the meantime, nothing is really going to happen!

Nine Nine, Zero Zero Zero = Ninety Nine Thousand = 99,000
So, please don't ask us when is it going to release. Remember, you get back the love you give and there are no exceptions in case of rules made by God! We are probably going to make it a contributors' only release in July! So, if you are not a contributor, you'll be left with nothing. Nothing is great, but nothing is still nothing!

You can, if you wish, MakeItHappen
or
You can just do Nothing

Idiots' Confessions

A whole year has passed, 382 days to be exact. We could raise only 1,69,587 rupees of which 12,482 rupees had been spent on commissions of our online fundraising partners. So, we were left with 1,57,105 rupees to spend for the film. Our pledge was not much. All we needed was 2,50,000 rupees for the film to materialize. After 382 days of work, we have 1324 people on our FB page but only around 160 of them are contributors. Even among these 160, there are people who could easily chip in 500 rupees at least but being led by misunderstanding all they contributed was just 1 rupee. Of course not to forget people who forgot the promises they made (you know, next month when I get the paycheck, I will... types). Some of our friends sent us 500 and said they would be happy to send in another 5000 if they get the assurance that the film is really going to happen. Well, 40% of the shooting part is over, but this trivial fact could not win over their doubtful minds. Some of our beloved friends often show up on social networks (and even in real life) asking, "hey, how's the project going"(?). Dear friend, if you are so concerned about this project what stopped you from contributing 1000, 100, 10 or even as minimum as 1 rupee? Do you really care? When you tell us you believe that we are doing something path-breaking and it will inspire a lot of others, we sincerely doubt your honesty.

In the month of May, 2012, we stopped posting frequently on this blog because we got the feeling that it's not working. The heap of words are not convincing enough. The realization was true, now we are assured as Google shows us that we have 6,993 page views since the creation of this blog and that does not change the fact that we have only around 160 people who have contributed to the film financially. Here's how we got them. The amount of individual contributions are not mentioned just for the sake of privacy. 

OFFLINE COLLECTION

[1,12,974.51 INR Raised]

1.      S N Nanda

2.      Rajiv Sinha

3.      Carole

4.      Kanungo

5.      Swagat Sen

6.      D.K Sornam

7.      Dev Daruka

8.      Surya Shankar Dash

9.      Maharatna Banerjee

10.  Dhrubaa Ghosh

11.  Bagula Bhagat

12.  Hemant Kumar Gaba

13.  Samarendra Das

14.  Gurpal Singh

15.  Whose handwritings are not readable (3)

16.  People who forgot to drop a mail (12-15)

17.  Riddhiman Basu

18.  Ritam Bhaumik

19.  Two Unknown Foreigners

20.  Avishek Thakur

21.  Ginnetta Correlli

22.  Jason Marsh

23.  Kanchan Sengupta

24.  Sayan Chakraborty

25.  Shamayita Banerjee

26.  Apratim Ganguly

27.  Ajasra Das

28.  Manju Chakraborty

29.  Kamal Kumar Roy

30.  Monomita Roy

31.  Shubhankar Mazumdar

32.  Debdut Sadhu

33.  Supratim Sanyal

34.  Tushar Sarkar

35.  Anirban Roychowdhury

36.  Gairik Roy

37.  Sunando Patra

38.  Nishan Chatterjee

39.  Kumar Chitrang

40.  Tuhin Mallik

41.  Soumyaditya Nanda

42.  Moumita Chakraborty Goswami

43.  Sushanta Kar

44.  Sonali Sengupta

45.  Suddha Prasad Bagchi

46.  Gangotryi Sorcar

47.  Achintyarup Ray

48.  Ceaser Mandal

49.  Soumya Maiti

50.  Atish Baul

51.  Justin Andrews

52.  Joydeep Thakur

53.  Avijit Ghoshal

54.  Debajyoti Guha

55.  Mrinal Mazumdar

56.  Anirban Dashgupta

57.  Debajyoti Mukherjee

58.  Sanjoy Sinharoy

59.  Saptarshi Dey

60.  Mr. Dasgupta

61.  Maifuz Ali

62.  Koustav Bhattacharya

63.  Mrinmoy Chatterjee

64.  Ugen Bhutia

65.  Shre Kumar Chatterjee

66.  Gautam Kar

67.  Sumit Bhattacharya

68.  Nilabhra Banerjee

69.  Amik Das

70.  Argha Sen

71.  Ipsita Palbhowmick

72.  Maj Gaurav Garg

73.  Two old LFEBF members

74.  Arpan Chowdhury

75.  Nabendu Bhattacharya

76.  Ranjan Roy

77.  Subrata Mukherjee

78.  Ramakrishna Bhattacharya

79.  Anirban Bandopadhyay

80.  Debanjan Das

81.  Anirban Chattopadhyay

82.  Parambrata Chatterjee

83.  Abhinandan Ghose

84.  Anisha Das

85.  Anonymous

86.  Indrani Datta

87.  Subir Kumar Sengupta

88.  Soma Sengupta

89.  Abhijay Sengupta

90.  Samran Huda

91.  Deva Agarwal

92.  Dinu Bandopadhyay

Via Wishberry.in

[54, 017 INR Raised | 43, 601.77 INR Received]

1.   Sreemanti Sengupta

2.   Ms Dasgupta

3.   Siddhartha Nath

4.   Anindya Bose

5.   Mukherjee Twish

6.   Amiya Kumar

7.   Bipad Bhanjan Behera

8.   Antara Kundu

9.   Avishek Nag

10. Indranil Ghosh

11. Somak Dutta

12. Saswata Chakraborty

13. Rupa Debnath

14. Soumya Bhattacharya

15. Snigdha Sheel

16. Sabyasachi Das

17. Adheesh Verma

18. Neeti Tandon

19. Aroonav Das

20. Ankush Hore

21. Neha Bhat

22. Koushik Bagchi

23. Tarang Desai

24. Rijabrata Chakraborty

25. Samyamoy Sen Gupta

26. Somnath Roy

27. Sounak Kar

28. Rammohan

29. Manas Tarai

30. Aniket Mukherjee

31. Shounak Ghoshal

32. Supriyo Das

33. Soham Pal

34. Ankan Paul

35. Bikramjit Chakraborty

36. Atma Prakash Mishra

37. Amir Motlagh

38. Snigdhendu Bhattacharya

39. Varsha Chakraborty

40. Tuhin Subhra Sinha

41. Ugenther Kumar

42. K V Krishna Rao

43. Arnab Ganguly

44. Rohosen Bandopadhyay

45. Riccardo Bella

46. K V Srinivasan

47. Kannaiah C H

48. Sanhita Modak

49. Ushnish

Via IndieGoGo

[2, 595.84 INR Raised | 529.02 INR Received]

1. Salil Biswas
2. Tushnik Chowdhury
3. Soumen Atta

TOTAL

1,69,587.35 INR Raised | 1,57,105.30 INR Received

Commissions and Set-up fees: INR 12, 482.05

So, "hey, how's the project going", "how and when are you planning to release this film", "when is it going to happen" --- to all these questions we have only one answer. It's not going to happen automatically. We never said that we would make it happen. What we said was "Share, Donate, Make it Happen". So, it depends on you actually --- how shall it happen, how shall it reach the people or whether it shall happen at all. 

If you really care, if you really feel for it, make us include your name in the list posted above. We still need another 80,000 rupees. It's a 90 minute long film divided into 20 sequences with 16 characters and around 15 extras, shot in 4 different places. Just consider the cost of food and transport and tell us, are we asking too much (2.5 lacs)?

We had to stop the campaign in October, 2012 because the team is small. We can't keep on asking or trying to convince one person the Nth time for contributing 100 rupees. No, we cannot go and meet you for collecting 500 rupees. We have a whole film to make. You don't have the time to volunteer, we know that, you have your own life and you cannot really spend much time on spreading the word in favour of us. But you have our bank a/c details, you have our Paypal details. You can at least do your bit and add some value to your support, a value that counts.

Regards

Speaking: Just Like That

The list of scheduled tasks becomes longer everyday. It seems to be never-ending now. This project, that project, his project - damn! It hurts the most when no one pays you what you actually deserve and it burns most when everyone behaves like his one is the most important one because once the goal is accomplished we'll be flooded with fat-ass producers. Do they still think we are innocent children with eyes full of dreams and illusions?

Anyway, this morning we received some good news. The 0ne Rupee film project is now registered with imdb under "titles in production" (visit the page, click here). This is good because they really don't accept much titles unless the filming process has begun. Till date the total collection is INR 22,153. We need more coming. Recently the number of contributions coming in per week has decreased. A lot of people have promised but have not contributed till date. For them, there is just one thing we need to say , "we know, you have been busy, but if you really want this thing to happen please do it now and later just keep spreading the word because what you don't know is there are a lot of people who'd never want this project to materialize successfully. They are out there, watching us and wishing every bad thing possible." So, again, wee need your support. Don't just read this post or like us on facebook. Spread the word, share it wherever you think it's possible. By the way, there was a preview, just a scratch, uploaded to soundcloud a couple of days ago. Our friend Mr. Urban Saint is working on this track for the film. You can listen to the incomplete version here (http://soundcloud.com/indie-fm-bangla/track-1-one-rupee-film-urban).

The next part of the novella shall be up on MAM by the 14th of this month. Later on it'd be posted to this blog. If you have a blog or a website you can join in and help us just by sharing the posts.

We need you with us
Thank you again

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 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.

Beginning Post

Hello,
I just booked the domain to start the campaign. Will keep posting here whenever I have something interesting to share. I'm Anamitra Roy, one of the founder members and the curator of Little Fish Eat Big Fish (The No-Budget Filmmakers' Forum). I just needed to start this blog ASAP so that when I approach you tomorrow I have at least a blog on this project to share with you. The concept is like this: You give me a coin and I give you a paper with my contact and all so that you don't think I will smoke your money away like anything. I know what money is. I made my first short "Jean-Luc Godard Had No Script" back in 2009-10 for Rs 1k. The next that followed was Secret Footage_The Voyage, a 40 minute segment for Rs. 5k and in 2012 I've completed another short named 'Memories...of a Dead Township' for just no money, literally. It's not a style, it's a reality. If I had money, I guess I won't have become a no-budget filmmaker.

I expect your support through the campaign and the production.
And I hope you can trust me.


Thanks