Middle cinema has all but vanished due to economics: Nagesh Kukunoor

As technical committee head of IFFI, young director Kukunoor’s job is to see that all films shown at the festival are of chakachak quality. MEENAKSHI RAO catches up with him in Goa to talk about cinema & issues around it

What are you busy with nowadays?

I did a web series, actually directed the pilot. It is with Nimrit Kaur and a fictional account of the first woman commando called The Test Case, it is on the Balaji platform. It is a format I am exploring very actively, something that has fascinated me for long. I have always tried hard to do something that I have never done before. To tell a story in 100 or 120 minutes is something I have been doing but to tell it in 500 minutes is a huge challenge so I am interested in this new format.

What are your views on this alternate platform of web entertainment?

Right now we are all guessing, we are all hoping. We feel very strongly that it is the future for the simple reason that if you look at TV, we started with three or four channels and ended up with around 500. It is the same with virtually all the countries. Increasingly it has become an extremely personal process for the viewer. So, I want to watch what I want to watch and when I want to watch and entertainment should fit those needs. People will watch less of TV and go to the web, that’s where it is headed. And with the delivery systems becoming really efficient, like internet speed etc, I never thought things would change so fast. Like, 40-50 mbps is no big deal in people’s homes anymore. That’s hastened the switch and people are resorting to new kinds of story-telling formats. The concept of binge watching seems to be the flavour of the month so that’s where I am.

Does the absence of a Censor Board for online entertainment give you more pleasure in doing a web project?

That is definitely a plus but not the only reason to explore this format. The primary reason is that you can tell a story over such a long time. And it is not like TV because all of us are approaching is as we would a film. Scripting is like a film, execution is like a film. It is not like TV where everything is instantaneous and done at the last minute. Time is taken for shooting, scripting etc.

Anything in the pipeline for Bollywood?

I am actively always writing scripts and working on features but just momentarily I have put that on hold as I am actively scripting for the web series I’ve planned. Once that’s done, early next year I will be starting another project.

What are your views about all this intolerance around cinema, Padmavati and the pulling out of two films from this fest?

A filmmaker is never ever going to get all the facts right and that’s the whole thing about doing fiction. Given that, it’s unfortunate that it has blown up into this needless controversy. There was a time when you could make anything, yes people would complain but things would move on. Now every film everywhere someone’s got a problem. Having a problem as a viewer’s your prerogative but not to the point of issuing threats and disrupting the process. It happened with Bandit Queen and they fought it all the way to Supreme Court. It is good that the Supreme Court has till now stood by Padmavati. It gives filmmakers like me hope. Cinema is story-telling just as history is story-telling. Bhansali is a huge target. If someone like me were to make it would be someone so small that no one would bother.

But the film does get propelled by negative publicity too, doesn’t it?

I have never in my life resorted to the concept of ‘any publicity is good publicity’. Never played that game so don’t know how it benefits or doesn’t benefit a film. I have made and publicised my films in an old fashioned way. Of course, Padmavati has become a part of national debate so eventually everyone would now want to see what that part is that fuelled such a furore.

You have been making small budget, real time cute films and now Bollywood has also started opening up to this genre. What are views on this expansion from big-star box office blockbusters, audience acceptability of small films and also the fact they are making money?

I have been hearing this for some time now. I have always said that when the numbers are there to justify it and I do not mean numbers at the box office, I mean when a lot much such films start succeeding at the box office then I will say it is a movement. Right now, there will be examples that do well, like Bareilly Ki Barfi or Newton. Cinema, like everything else, is driven by spectacles so the big-hero mostly, heroines not so much, films will always take centrestage. That will happen everywhere in the world. Increasingly it has become apparent that the middle cinema has disappeared. And that’s based on the current economics. Either the film has to have an extreme budget —Rs 150-Rs 200 crore, big stars or it has to be very small. The middle ground seems to be disappearing. The same thing has happened in Hollywood and India has been following suit because the economics of watching a film have come down to such an extent that a family has to spend more than 3k on watching one film. So they will rather go the spectacle and occasionally these small little gems get explored (on a lean week) and they do well. Newton’s success was clearly the fact that the Friday it released that morning it was also announced that it was India’s official entry for the Oscars. Collections spiked on Saturday, picked up on Sunday and then the word of mouth about how good the film was made the day for it. It would not have happened if that news had not come in. All I am saying is that is very exciting for me when small films succeed because they are always fighting against a much larger system but I don’t know how much of a trend it would be because the economics don’t make sense. In all the bigger cities, theatre rentals are so high so they have to charge a bomb on tickets which means families can’t come, it is a huge issue.

A whole lot of technology is being pushed into every film. Doesn’t that take away from the humble story, the emotions and the soul of a film?

I love the superhero movies myself so it is very hard for me to say. Everyone is going for the event films, the dhoom dhadaka. What is dhoom dhadaka? That’s when you are able to achieve things which you weren’t able to earlier — because of special effects. So it has taken centrestage. But I think when filmmakers tell stories that they want to. You will find that even Titanic which is considered the greatest romantic film, it was the spectacular CGIs in the last hour of the sinking of the ship that took it into the stratosphere. I haven’t worried about the larger context of cinema because story-telling goes through different phases and eventually people watch they want to watch.

What kind of stories work for you now after you have done a whole gamut of these very specialised small stories?

If you look at my filmography, I have dabbled in a host of genres — action films, drama thrillers, stupid comedies. I do wear my heart where financing takes me. As a film-goer I like watching different kinds of cinema and as filmmaker I try and do the same. It is always where the story takes me, some large, some small.

Are you coming to Delhi anytime soon?

What? With all that pollution? No way!