There is a huge creative deficit in the Indian film industry, feels actor-filmmaker Rajat Kapoor. On the sidelines of the Dharamsala International Film Festival, where his latest, Aankhon Dekhi, was the opening feature, the actor said the industry was more interested in the money these movies earned rather than the creative process.
"There's no dearth of talent in the industry, but they are more inclined to making money than making intelligent movies," said Kapoor, who does not watch Bollywood movies, and feels the movies of Anurag Kashyap are some of the best in the industry.
"He's the only guy I know who has a vision and is willing to put it out there. I also love the works of Marathi filmmaker Parish Mokashi; thoroughly loved his Harishchandrachi Factory."
Aankhon Dekhi, which is about an old man out to figure out the world around him, has done well critically. With dearth of funds being a recurring problem in making niche movies, it's a bit surprising that Kapoor was able to find a producer on micro-blogging site Twitter.
"I tweeted saying I was sick of producers, and a young man from Nigeria tweeted back saying he was interested. Just in a while, I was assured ?4 crore. He was an absolute angel," said Kapoor. "The movie flopped commercially, and yet he has put money in five projects."
Kapoor who studied film direction at FTII, Pune, says he became an actor by accident. "Acting is a neat, easy job. I was looking for funds for my projects and Naseeruddin had seen my work and recommended me to Mira Nair. I became part of Monsoon Wedding; it was a happy accident," said Kapoor.
Looking back, the filmmaker says he finds a pattern in his work. "My characters Raghu (Raghu Romeo), Sunil (Mixed Masala), VK (Mithya) and Bauji (Aankhon Dekhi) are obsessive, and yet impressive in some sense," he said.
Kapoor also said money had always been a problem for making films. "For Raghu Romeo, I saved up ?10 lakh and NFDC promised me a similar amount. I then sent mails to friends asking them to buy shares in the movie.
Some contributed by making the website, some gave me lyrics. It was a crowd-sourced film when such concepts were not spoken of," said Kapoor, who's now working on three projects; one a gangster movie and another a theatre film.
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