With MUD MUD KE NA DEKH (#MMKND) i did not want any barriers. It was a no strings attached project all along. My focus was to jus go out there & make it the way I had envisioned it on paper. Little Duck Productions backed the project monetarily and my production house MOR Films handled the entire Execution & Talent Onboarding. The lead male actor, Mayukh Ray was extremely kicked about doing it as soon as he read the script that was lying in my script vault bank all written & ready for a good 16 months. He nudged me to the point of convincement of initiating the project immediately. Sulagna Panigrahi & I met up over coffee for a narration and she digged the story instantly too. Sharda Nand Singh, who i already knew was a good choice for the character he essayed in the film, Mayank Adlakha- my Man Friday & Joy Banerjee handled the Sound Design front with great sensitivity. Also, Akul Gilche, Sundeep Hemnaoni & Dheeraj Govindraju were very instrumental in bringing this film to celluloid by their invaluable contribution in varied departments.
Prior to this i have made my debut feature film as a Writer & Director called THE MAYA TAPE which is a Horror/Thriller too. It stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vishakha Singh and its all done & ready for a theatrical release in 2017. There is another feature film project in post & 2 other projects lined up which i cant disclose much about right now.
The biggest positive of Extreme genres is that they are best suited for theatrical viewing. That makes it Piracy proof to a large extent as audiences will never be able to replicate that sensation at home. I think within the next 5 years, all genre of theatrical films will have to project themselves as an Experience rather than a Good Film to justify the cost & efforts involved for the viewers. DONT BREATHE became the first film in its genre (Horror/Thriller) to dwarf its Friday collections on its first Monday by over 120% at the Indian Box Office beating Bollywood films while at it. The web is full of Romance & Comedy which are considered “SAFE”. The Digital Content market is booming but stagnated. Everyone follows a diktat of making a certain type of Comedy/Romantic as thats what has been successful before. My problem is in the plasticky quality of the Comedy/Romantics made for the social media platform, not the genre’s itself. If thats what you will ALLOW to offer as a Producer and thats what you will GIVE IN to make as a Film maker how can you ever know if the audience’s would accept anything else?
MMKND was an experiment in the same and I think we succeeded with the acquisition of the film by Digital platform giants TVF (The Viral Fever) for a Halloween Release.
MMKND was an official selection at the Prestigious Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival held annually in the United States. My journalist friend from NY, Diana Parmar was representing the film on my behalf in South Carolina during the festival. In her interaction with the attending audience’s and agents the response she gathered post screening of MMKND there was a paradigm shift for me.They were surprised that India was making horror films and that too good ones. I presume their exposure was of the Horrex genre made popular in India and obviously they did not have a good opinion of us. I am sure they would have excitedly looked forward to seeing my film rather than being pleasantly surprised if i was a South Korean Film maker with a South Korean Horror short film at the Festival. It takes years of doing & undoing to build or degrade something. I realized that wee represent our country, not just ourselves when we make a film.
I am personally very excited & assured about my upcoming projects as they are intriguing subjects that deserve the audiences time, money & attention. I plan to scale up MOR Films drastically in the coming 3 years and create all types of films with great engaging stories being the common factor in all of them.
You can watch MUD MUD KE NA DEKH in the SHORT FILMS section here:
https://tvfinboxoffice.com
–Nikhil Allug
mad about moviez.in 