“Final Thoughts”

By Jaideep

Hulla went off theatres today all around India. It didn’t get most of the first weekend to find its audience, and it sure as hell won’t get its second. I was getting calls off and on yesterday from people who had braved cancelled shows and odd timings to finally catch the film, and even though their views were very enthusiastic (why else would they call me, I guess) the reports were grim on attendance – from five to twenty people for the most part. It was almost like a patient on life support. And it comes with the attendant relief of finally switching that off. At least it is over.

But there was a brief last gasp of breath yesterday when I got a call at night out-of-the-blue from Abbas Tyrewala – whom I have never met, and who did not know me before he finished seeing Hulla just half an hour before he called. He spoke for more than twenty minutes very enthusiastically about the film – said he loved the performances and the script, and he was very happy to see “real life” in a film made in our environment like this. He also said that the “resource crunch” did show in some places though, especially in the CM scene. But it is really unfortunate that Big Pictures have not promoted it at all, not got behind the film, he felt. Still, he felt it was an important and excellent film and he felt compelled to tell me that, even though I was a stranger.

All said and done, the enthusiastic acceptance of people like this (and Sudhir Mishra and Anurag Kashyap) is definitely more significant to me than anything else. That itself tells me that the film was worth doing, the bizarrely unanimous reaction from the Mumbai (and only Mumbai) critics notwithstanding. The film seems to have done the worst business in Mumbai too – as there seemed to be more people willing to sample the film elsewhere as compared to Mumbai (for those who think reviews don’t affect the fortunes of small films).

And it’s a shame that they had to indulge in their marketing bullshit only when it come to the ads of Hulla in the papers on Wednesday and Thursday, which said “2nd weeks plans fast filling”. It made quite a few people of my acquaintance plan to go see the film in the weekend, rather than catch it somehow during the two days remaining. Sushant had also seen fresh Hulla posters put up two mornings ago, and you really wonder what all that was about. In any case, almost half the advertised shows in Mumbai and Pune never happened; they were cancelled, often not even waiting to see if an audience of sorts landed up. They cancelled the show well in advance and interested patrons were told “it is house-full”.

The average price of ticket to see Hulla in Mumbai was between Rs 180 and 200 (in some cases it went up to Rs 500, and I wonder if anybody even saw it at that price; I wouldn’t), and that makes me wonder where this whole multiplex phenomenon is going. Forget about anyone wanting to see an everyday film with visuals of a middle-class world, would anybody want to try any unknown quantity for this ticket cost? Waiting for the dvd makes so much more sense. Which in turn also means that “multiplex films” is a complete misnomer for films that aim to be different content-wise. If anything, this culture will foster more “entertaining” safe films, and it will only justify spending this kind of money for seeing big stars blown up on screen in affluent surroundings, ideally foreign locations. This is regressive to our film scene, in my opinion. And even otherwise, I do not see how the business model of luxury film viewing can survive in a country like ours.

Meanwhile, I received two emails and one comment on this site (which I have removed while disabling comments), all from “reviewers” whose works of art I have put up in the previous post. All smug, even gleeful. One saying that I’m a bad loser and have been shown my place. Another suggesting something like – “oh, I’ve been reading your blog for some time, wanted to love your film so much, but I just couldn’t, so sorry.” Another giving the standard bullshit media line – when you want the media you come to us and when you don’t need us anymore, you criticize us, how pathetic. One of them even upheld the wonderful independent spirit of Buzz18.com for rubbishing the film despite being our so-called media partners, journalistic integrity being at stake after all.

It does appear from this that, at least from some quarters, the bile in the media could have been a reaction to me, and not just the film. Whether the likes of these glorified copy editors who wrote to me came across this blog whilst googling my name for “research” or were getting their daily chuckles from this novelty crib diary, they were aware of this blog. This is in synch with the three journos who wrote to me previously after I’d criticized their coverage on this same blog.

But the mass massacre of Hulla in Mumbai cannot be a result of this, surely. People talk about a big film mafia that are out to kill small films, as they do not want the star-big budgets system to be rocked. They talk about certain reviews and reviewers being a part of the paid publicity plan and their mandate apparently includes harming films that threaten this system. It’s a well-known rumour and it has been around for a long time, but this is the first time I’m tempted to take it at least quasi seriously.

But that still does not account for the entire media which trashed Hulla. I’m sure quite a few of them at least genuinely didn’t like it (and not all were mindlessly echoing other people’s opinions), which I really don’t have a problem with. Unfortunately, some of them reveal a complete lack of perspective about cinema when they talk about things like “lack of production values” and “common mistakes of first-timers”. The understanding that production values have nothing to do with appreciating a film is simply not there, nor is the realization that the Western film press they look up to, never ever review films on these terms. These are non-issues worldwide but in our great country anything we can use to drag someone down is fair game. There is nothing like independence of thought and application of a broader perspective. There is no spirit of inquiry or clarity about the missing elements. The smug all-knowing tone can cover up their stupidity with people who share their ignorance, but gradually enough people are beginning to treat them with the disdain they deserve. It is just a matter of time before these reviewers lose their relevance altogether to the serious web reviewers (not the two-bit Bollywood websites) as has already happened in the West. But in the meantime, they will continue dumbing down the reader/ audience that reads or watches them and directly cause damage to the films that try to do anything genuinely different that they cannot grasp immediately (and especially if it is a first-timer’s film with no big names, it can never merit the benefit-of-doubt).

None of them seem remotely interested in being advocates for small defenseless films or enthusiastically introducing their readers/ audiences to new material that is not covered in the mainstream media, and this is also what differentiates them from the respected reviewers of the West, and indeed the genuine film reviewers India has had in the past (Iqbal Masud, Amita Malik, Aruna Vasudev, among others). I have been a reviewer too in the past (1998-2001 in Gentleman and Tehelka), of music, and that was the spirit that motivated me to write about it, not the desire to drag people down or be a part of the commercial bandwagon. Whether it was an album that people didn’t know about yet or when I criticized some for selling out there was at least a point-of-view I was trying to put forward (and even here I did more of the first kind of piece than the second; but of course, I was not intending to make a living from reviewing.) Unfortunately, people do far, far more of the second these days and without any perspective or spirit of inquiry. And with the much higher reach that they have, they have no idea of the damage they do to new thinking and new talent, which is so fragile at the nascent stage.

It is sad that certain sections of the Hindi and Marathi media do not show the way to our overall media scene because even when Local had come out 3 years ago, I found the most thought-provoking pieces there. Here is another example of that with Hulla.

Some people have been telling me – what’s your problem - your film had no stars, an unusual story, a very low publicity budget, and no support from the producer – so many odds to fight, and you couldn’t beat those odds, so cool – why the moroseness? At the end of the day, neither the producer nor the distributor lost money, so it isn’t even a “flop” overall, technically. Well, I just think it is a huge opportunity lost – not just for me or the creative team on Hulla, but for small, independent thinking to become more relevant, not because Hulla was a great film, but because it had humour, lots of it, and that could have been a hugely commercial element if projected properly. Not everybody would have tuned in, but I still believe the numbers of those who would, would have been significant.

Finally, to end on a more cheerful note – there have been a few questions about some nitty-grittys in the film. So, here’s answering a few of them (only for that handful of people who think the film is worthwhile enough to know more) as it is the last chance to do so probably.

1) No, Matthew saying he’s 67 years old at one place and 74 at the other is not a mistake. He also says he has 3 daughters in an earlier scene and none later – which the same people seem to miss. That was who the character was. And no, he is not a drunkard either. Raj just threatens him with that, and Matthew knew his word would not stand up against Raj’s, so he does not contradict that threat.

2) Raj not being a sympathetic character for most people is actually the desired response. Show me a sleep-deprived guy who is cuddly and sweet and I’ll show you a hallucination. It is not possible to be likeable in that state, which is what a lot of people seem to be missing. Yes, maybe the script could have given Raj more happy moments with Abha at the beginning, but there were length issues. However, that might still be a mistake I would probably try to solve if I had a chance.

3) There are quite a few continuity issues, that make me cringe off and on – like Raj saying GRM when the screen says GMR, Janardan’s flat number is different from what Raj says in the Pophale scene, the bag on the carrier placed differently in the last Raj-Janardan moment…stuff like this. But no one seems to spot these.

4) For me, the execution inadequacy I am most regretful of is not the CM scene (which is an obvious example) but the handheld sequences in Raj and Abha’s house. I had lived with the idea of not cutting the shot in their house for four years unlike the cinematographer Param, and so the onus was on me to understand what it would take to make that work properly. In the end, the Raj-Abha home sequences are so un-dynamic and unimaginatively static that the idea just does not make itself felt. To me, this is the biggest mistake in the film, and my biggest learning, and the solution was so simple that it pisses me off that I didn’t think of it.

5) People have been wondering when the OST is coming out. Well, it is not. The rights belong to Indian Ocean and they will be releasing the song in their next album, but they do not have the permission (from Big Pictures) to use the same lyrics. But believe it or not – Janardan’s song, Raj’s song and the closing credits songs is actually just one long song! It is absolute magic to see them go from one mood to another in the same song and the movement and transition is absolutely fascinating. Also, for those who didn’t notice – the opening credits song is actually the same as in the closing credits – but both are in different tempos. The opening credit sequence is very upbeat and optimistic and closing credits song downbeat and introspective (and in a strange way, very compassionate – it actually captures the film’s basic spirit brilliantly; I always feel disappointed when people start walking out when the closing credits begin). But it is the same song! Again, this is magical to me. These guys are just so brilliant!

I received separate emails from Rahul, Amit and Asheem of Indian Ocean from the US (where they are currently touring) telling me not to worry about the critics and to not lose my confidence. They insist that Hulla is far better than what the reviewers have suggested and to keep the faith. Their support means a lot to me, especially because they have been my greatest inspiration in the past few years since I got know them (after that same Gentleman piece I have linked above).

So, here we are at the end of this journey. This blog shuts down now, and I want to stop writing in public now and resume working in private again (in line with Sudhir Mishra’s advice to me last week – think more for your films and less for yourself). Perhaps Hulla’s failure to find its audience will make the contents of this blog irrelevant too, but I still don’t regret doing it.

Anyway, somehow, and I don’t know exactly why, I feel this is not the last Hulla has been heard of yet. Time will tell.

Postscript: The official paid (very cheap, less than Rs 200) Hulla download on high def is here. And for those who don’t want to put their credit card number on the Net, this looks like a good option.

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“Quick but Painful Death”

By Jaideep

From Thursday itself, there were indications that things were going dreadfully wrong. These reviews came first – ET, Buzz18 and DNA. Interesting how they seemed to say the same thing. (Buzz18.com are supposed to our media partners – so they release this scathing review before anyone else has spoken about the film, and their correspondent even accused me of lifting Hulla from a Marathi film which she couldn’t name – some media partners!!)

On Friday, I went for first day, first show at Inorbit Malad. 10-15 a.m. show. Rs 300 per ticket. Zero people. Show cancelled. At that price, I doubt anybody would have seen any film. (Which makes you wonder - at these ticket prices, isn’t there pressure on the producers to deliver more commercial films; doesn’t that make a mockery of the term - “multiplex film”?)

An uneasy premonition told me it was all going to go spectacularly wrong. The nerves began to slowly jangle and the tension building up from the anticipation began to take its toll.

Gradually, the reviews kept coming. All bad. All eerily echoing each other. First half is good, second half sucks. Good performances. Crappy script. Very flimsy premise. How can anyone make a film on this? Director did not know what to do in the second half. I went to Cinemax with my office team; there were about 20 people in the theatre, and they all seemed to enjoy it. Some relief. Some more relief when we heard DJ Jeeturaj of Radio Mirchi loves the film and is going to recommend it aggressively on Saturday. No paid publicity here.

But the bad reviews continued. The journalist from Rediff I’d criticized in my last post called me up; I didn’t take the call because I was too spent already to go through further unpleasantness. One hour later, her “review” came up on Rediff
And she’d said she doesn’t do reviews – I seriously doubt if she saw the film.

And then, the NDTV review– Anupama Chopra. HT– Khalid Mohammed, CNN IBN – Rajeev Masand. Same story as above. Went to PVR Juhu at night where Rajat was to join us – Sushant, Kartika and some friends and family. There were two people in the theatre besides friends and family. Rajat never came (bizarrely, he has not seen the film till date). Sushant and I hung around for a while after interval, trying to cheer each other up. This is a big blow for him too. He starts talking about one or two things we could have done differently in the film; I cut him short saying I don’t have the stamina for this now, maybe later.

Next morning, TOI gives it one and a half stars. Mumbai Mirror continues the trend, though it gives half star more. The game is pretty much over.

When we have no stars to ensure an opening and no promotional budgets to have any kind of recall, it is the reviews I had been relying on. Yes, I had expected good reviews. That was based on the reactions I had got everywhere, during the last 6 months of the film’s post production and then Osian and Stuttgart. Reactions like these from Utpal Borpujari of Sakaal Times, Namrata Joshi from Outlook, Avijit Ghosh from TOI, Delhi and Gautaman Bhaskaran, freelancer - they seem from a different lifetime now.

At worst, I thought we’d get mixed reviews – some would like it, some not so much. I know the film is not for everybody, but so many people love it insanely, I thought there would be enough to keep the film going. The consistent bad reviews pretty much destroyed all chances for the film. It is strange how whimsical and homogeneous they all were – there wasn’t much evidence of analysis. Was it the result of seeing this film as the third consecutive film on 16th September at Famous? The moment the lightness of touch was tempered by an edginess and darkness, all hell broke loose? Or maybe the film just didn’t work for them overall.

I was finding it difficult to function on Saturday, so I sat down and started writing - it kept me focussed for a while. This time for Passion For Cinema – something that captured the feeling of failure and insecurity I felt at that moment. I felt a little better after that, as if I’d got something off my chest, but the chest began to clam up again soon, as further bad reviews kept coming.

This, and its facile elaborations

This is Taran Adarsh’s view.

More Bollywood website reviews - smashhits.com (how ironic!). Glamsham.com.

Radio Sargam’s review has this priceless line – “Debutante director Jaideep Verma appears as a good director and writer. He needs to improve a bit on writing front. Otherwise, he is brilliant (sic).” Of course, the marks (rating) remain the same as everyone else’s.

Saturday, I went to PVR Juhu and went through some more punishment – Sajjanpur was houseful, Hulla had about 10 people, Saas Bahu & Sensex more than twenty despite consistently getting worse reviews than us. Hmm.

I’d called a few friends and acquaintances to come and see the film by the 10.55 pm show at PVR Juhu. But the guy at the ticket counter said, sorry, Hulla is houseful. It was a cruel joke because upstairs the manager told us that the Hulla show had been replaced by Rock On. Meanwhile, I got calls informing me that the Apsara show had been cancelled as had all the weekend shows at E Squared (Pune) and as the Apsara guy said – “at the behest of the distributor”. So, basically this film wasn’t even going to be allowed 2 days to find its audience.

On Sunday, there was some respite as these reviews showed up – Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express (but then she’d seen the show in Delhi at Osian, of course she’d have a different point-of-view). this web review (which was all over) and Uma Mahadevan Dasgupta’s thoughts, Time Out
and even Deepa Gahlot’s review
assuaged the wounds a bit. This would have too if the star rating was consistent with what he says in the review, but he seemed to have been suitably influenced by the din around him when it was time to give marks.

And then came the only bright part of the last three days. Sudhir Mishra and Anurag Kashyap – the two people whose opinions mean the most to me in matters pertaining to cinema in this town, came and saw the film. They both seemed to like it a lot. Mr Mishra kept saying, “I do not understand the backlash.” Anurag kept raving about the script. Both said that there aren’t too many people in this town who can make a film like this for the budget I made it for, and I should be proud of that. Then, Anurag went home and posted an entry on Passion for Cinema – and how I wished this had come out just 4 days ago. Next day, Sudhir Mishra commented on Hulla too on this same piece, recommending it. But it was too little, too late.

There were close to sixty people who saw the film on Sunday night and most seemed to have enjoyed it. In fact, we noticed three people who were coming for the second time in 3 days to see it. Someone else also pointed this out at R Mall where two people were seeing it for the second time, as they were anticipating all the funny moments. To me, this is a sign that the film could have a good-sized niche audience who appreciated the film, but the film will now never reach them. Kartika says this is a hit that wasn’t allowed to reach people. Who knows?

Monday’s attendance in theatres was poor, and though posts like this and this were very encouraging, it doesn’t really change the reality that the film will probably be off theatres by Friday. I even wrote to Adlabs requesting them to run very few shows but at convenient timings for just one more week, but I’m sure that is like Raj writing to the Chief Minister about the whistle.

So, here we have it. Despite comments about how the film is technically not a flop at all, as the producer and distributor have already made profits, it sure as hell does not feel like that. It is disappointing that even some friends and acquaintances haven’t given Hulla the benefit of the doubt by seeing it after the reviews; what chance does it have to be seen by the general public? It’s interesting to see some fitting their opinions to the media reviews (startlingly homogeneous as I mentioned) and now, people echoing Anurag’s views (but, too late). Interesting how the media or its surfeit keeps people from thinking for themselves. The few independent opinions I got (both critical and complimentary) were from people who hadn’t paid much attention to the reviews or read them.

Some people (especially a curious lot of consistent haters on PFC, who aggressively and gleefully, and anonymously, have been attacking me personally ever since my FTII piece, which tells you where they are coming from) have been wondering why I’m not accepting the critics’ point-of-view that it is an average film. Well, if the reaction after the Osian screenings hadn’t been as good, if I had not run into people who insanely, totally loved the film, if Sudhir Mishra and Anurag Kashyap had not reacted so positively, then maybe there would be space for me to feel some of those doubts. But now, as it happens, I think the Mumbai critics got it wrong. I don’t believe Hulla is a perfect film, I never have, but it is nothing near as bad as it was made out by this lot. I just know that, as do many others. Other journalists (who did not review the film) have written to me expressing their bewilderment about the whole thing.

I don’t subscribe to the view that this blog has been partly responsible – by putting people off with its criticism of some factions of the media. First, because I can’t believe they have time to read it (despite the three calls I got from thin-skinned journos after I’d criticized their coverage, which I think is really rich). Two, it is far-fetched to believe they got together and conspired, in fact that is ridiculous (at best, maybe discussed after the press screening and neatly fitted their opinions into the majority one). Some people said I wasn’t sufficiently “humble” and “modest” for a first-time filmmaker and that put the media off. Well, I’m not here to adjust myself to the expectations of the media, but I can’t believe even this media is as low IQ as that.

And why is it only the media’s fault anyway? The producers sure as hell showed no confidence in the film. From what I understand, Sunil Doshi had sold the project to Adlabs when Manmohan Shetty was at the helm, but after his departure from Adlabs, the latter went about fulfilling its commitments to the film very very perfunctorily. At some point, Sunil must have lost interest too - since he didn’t feel the need for preview screenings or a premiere, which as is pretty obvious now, would have helped the film enormously. (He also left town one day after the release, perhaps another indicator to his interest). Adlabs (which had meanwhile become Big Pictures, again very ironic given Hulla’s situation) allotted a very small budget for the promotions and not much of a buzz happened. On top of that, I felt the promos just did not do justice to the film, but all my thoughts on this were overruled. I had not been too perturbed about the promotions though, maybe because I expected at least some of the reviewers to appreciate the film. I was wrong about so many things.

People have been saying that this blog has also damaged the film, because of its candour. The point of maintaining this blog was to demystify this whole process of filmmaking - to write something as a proper record (and given that there were so many green people working on the project, it seemed like a worthwhile, meaningful thing to do). It was Sunil Doshi’s idea that I maintain this but I’d told him from the beginning that I would not do it as a mere PR tool but as something that was a genuine record of not just thoughts but also emotions. Warts and all (which I know he is not comfortable with now). It may have been uncool to write about internal strife but it is a choice I made, we made, as I wanted the blog to mean something beyond just something going concurrent to the film. I did not edit my Chief AD Nimish’s diary on this same blog when he criticised me and my vision and my way of working (and it is still there) – that was the spirit of the thing. If I didn’t agree with what the producers did sometimes or Rajat’s advice on what was “mature” behaviour on the face of that, it felt right to air it without ever getting personal. Without ever leaving the professional realm. I wanted the blog to mean something – for it to capture ALL the frustrations and highs and not just the non-edited ones. I have looked and felt like a fool in quite a few blog posts too – people seem to overlook that. If that has damaged the film, then there’s not much I can do about that.

But I know one thing – it takes way too much energy to maintain this and then deal with the results of all the negative energy one lets off here. Am pretty sure I won’t be maintaining any blogs for the next film. Whenever that is.

Anyway. We have reached the end of this journey, almost. Will keep it going till the film is off theatres (which shouldn’t be long now). This film blog is going to be closed soon. The story of Hulla has now come to an end, more or less. And it just struck me - like almost everything else I’ve written (Local, Hulla and some other unpublished/ unproduced stuff), even this does not have a happy ending. Interesting.

POSTSCRIPT: And it keeps on piling on; utterly moronic “reviews” like this -the personal comments are quite amazing especially the last line about how I should take it easy now, as I won’t get any work after this.
Thankfully, crap like that gets offset by stuff like this.
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“Do reviewers really have that effect?”

By Shriya

Release:

I

I went to the 3.15 screening of Hulla at Sion Cinemax on Friday. It was pouring. We ran through the rain and reached the theatre to realize that the film was being shown at a mini-screen. The condition thrown in by Jaideep was that we’d go only if there were 10 seats already

(more…)

I have always believed that this is a film for Indians, for people who have lived here, who know these situations and these people. If the film fails to work for (many of) them, it is a failure of communication at least. In my opinion it is not a “festival film” – the incident with Edouard Waintrop notwithstanding (he is the director of the prestigious Fribourg Festival; after the Osian screening in Delhi he came up to me and insisted that he wanted the film for his festival – when I asked what he liked about the film, he said, “I’ve not laughed so much for years while seeing a film.”) But I really think this is a freak case; it is difficult for non-Indians to relate in big numbers to this because they probably cannot comprehend a way of life where such things happen and are perpetuated.

Meanwhile, the media interactions (and mutilations) continue. This is the result of the Rediff interview. A poorly edited piece (with many typos, factual errors and misleading omissions) that sensationalizes one part of the interview, makes it the headline and then even looks for an old photo to go with that from the Net (jettisoning the latest one I had sent them). I guess it is my mistake in expecting the standards of this wonderful piece by them 3 years ago for Local to be replicated. But I should have understood that the standard and approach of every journalist is different. Lindsay (the one who did the 2005 piece) read the book, met me, and took trouble to understand the essence – there was no attempt to sensationalize anything. It is a tragedy that Lindsay has left journalism for corporate management, but hopefully not an irreversible one. It was also very interesting for me to revisit the 2005 piece and see how much calmer I was. Nature of work, or result of the times, I don’t know.

There was a press meet last Saturday at the Adlabs office. It was well-organised by their staff, with different rooms in the office converted to interview rooms/ cabins, and Rajat, Sushant, Kartika and I kept moving from room to room. It was tiresome that since no one in the media had seen the film, and they all asked the same questions, and the answers were all the same. Why all the questions and answers couldn’t be done together is beyond me.

And then…the questions. Someone from buzz18.com asked me if Hulla was lifted from a Marathi film? I asked why she asked this; she’d read it somewhere she said, no further elaboration was offered. It was all so arbitrary and silly. During a group interview, where 3-4 people were interviewing me together, one journalist actually answered his mobile phone and began to speak on it in a loud voice. I asked him to go outside as he was disturbing everybody – he glared at me right through the afternoon. There were many more inanities, and the whole exercise just seemed so pointless after a while. Most of them were just interested in getting the job done and leaving the place. There was hardly any genuine curiosity.

A comment on the Rediff piece said that the film had been lifted from Noise. I understand the instinct to suspect any film of plagiarism, such is the climate today in India, but surely before deciding that is the case, a little individual discretion can be applied. I made sure I saw Falling Down and Cavite before forming my opinion on Dombivali Fast and Aamir. Forget about the fact that Noise is a 2007 film and my published Gentleman piece is from 2000, forget about the obvious difference in plot, if a similarity in theme is all it takes for two pieces of work to be pronounced the same then every romantic film, every war film, every action thriller is a lift I guess. I don’t know, is this an Indian crab mentality thing or what?

On Saturday, just before we left the Adlabs office, Sushant and I were peeing next to each other in the loo. It has been said that the vulnerability of that moment usually brings out the truth if prodded, and suddenly Sushant says, “I really don’t know what people can possibly dislike in this film!” It was an unusual thing for him to say; he has always been very cautiously positive about the film all these years. I remember myself replying, “You’ll be surprised how much fault people can find.” Later, I wondered if we could somehow contrive to put Sunil Doshi in that position so that we could pop the question. It doesn’t really matter, but we still have no clue what our producer thinks of the film.

(more…)

I was also quite annoyed with the posters that were being readied for release. The only two names mentioned there are the producer’s and the director’s and I think that is crap. I wanted the main crew list to be there at least but of course, I have no say. Not only that, they removed Indian Ocean’s name too, which I thought was very stupid, because for me, they are actually the most marketable name in the film (which tells you marketable the film is on paper, but still). I know for a fact that at least a dozen people I know of came to see the film at the Osian festival because of only their presence, I’m sure there were more. But just because some people are ignorant about them and their music, they decide that their name has no added value. I was also pissed that Mandeep has not been included in the poster whereas actors doing much smaller roles have. I find this kind of a thing quite thoughtless, and lacking the requisite respect one should have for the people who have given you a product to sell in the first place.

Adlabs were informed about Indian Ocean’s and Mandeep’s exclusion and I don’t know if any of it will be rectified. As always, of course, I have no say in any of this.

Meanwhile, I wrote a piece on the Passion for Cinema website here meant basically to provide an overview of the film. I ended it with my standard hope that new people will come and tell their stories as the ones currently in the industry are clearly not (especially the trained filmmakers from the likes of FTII, unlike the 1980s), and that my example, however good or bad the film is, should make them realize that they too can do it. Some people (FTII people, obviously) took exception to that, misunderstanding certain points, so I wrote a longer, more elaborate piece, based on my discussions with people over the years and my own observations (piece is here) and it seems as if I have rubbed even more people the wrong way, going by the threads of discussion on other forums or even an independent post on PFC itself and the comments on it. Some even got personal and started quoting portions from this blog to show how tasteless I am to criticize people I work/worked with, and why I’m “ranting” about them, etc. Oh well, I guess that is their intelligence and their prerogative in seeing things like that. And all this public airing of their contempt for me and my film (without having seen it) at the end of the day is a reflection of them, the way I see it.

Not bad publicity for Hulla, actually, however unintended.
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Also, the opening weekend does not clash with the last day of Ganpati this way, but the three films above don’t seem perturbed about that at all.

I really couldn’t care less what films release with it, what festivals are around it, whether India plays Australia or Pakistan in the Champions Trophy, I just want Hulla to come out so I can move on with my life.

This time the merry-go-round has moved in the opposite direction as the release date has actually been brought forward to 12th September. It seems this was the result of some rather intense confabulations with Reliance. Hopefully, this will not yo-yo further. Sunil says this will almost certainly be the final date.

Meanwhile, have been pleasantly surprised at the buzz Hulla has generated, primarily (more…)

Mission Istanbul has come and pretty much gone. Hulla was delayed because of this drivel. Even commercially, this makes no sense to me at all.

Meanwhile, Hulla played at two film festivals in July. At the Osian film festival in New Delhi, where it was in competition. (more…)