Parzania packs cinemas despite ban in Gujarat

Gujarat may have shut its doors on Rahul Dholakia’s Parzania, but the film is getting a favourable response elsewhere in the country. The movie was released on January 26 in several Indian cities and towns, including Mumbai, Pune, Panjim, New Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Kolkata, Indore and Bangalore.

“The audience turnout has been good especially in Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata,” says Saurabh Varma, vice-president of programming and distribution, Inox.

Industry watchers point out that though Parzania with its sensitive and realistic storyline is not mass appeal material, it has been well-received by its target audience at multiplexes in urban centres.

“The film was running house full during weekends at most of our properties,” says Devang Sampat, general manager of marketing, Cinemax. The film, made at a modest budget of Rs2 cr, collected nearly Rs21 lakh nationwide in the first week. Trade pundits estimate that the box-office collections may double in the following week.

“The response has been encouraging and we are expecting a bigger turnout in the coming days,” says Tushar Dhingra, COO of Adlabs Films.

So, has the disagreement with fundamentalists in Gujarat helped the prospects of the film at the box office? Trade analyst Amod Mehra doesn’t think it has. “It is an English-language film catering only to a socially aware and intellectual audience, which rarely gets swayed by negative or positive publicity,” Mehra says.

Movie buffs who have seen the film insist that a movie like Parzania was long overdue. “The movie dares to bare the truth without trying to sanitise it for popular consumption,” says Shareen Sharma, a budding writer and poet.

Dholakia feels that as a filmmaker who grew up in Gujarat he had to make this movie. “If I had chosen to keep quiet about the Gujarat genocide, I would have been as responsible for what happened as the people who actually perpetrated the crime,” he says. 

Parzania, which has been shown at film festivals in countries such as Italy, Thailand and the US, has faced more than its fair share of hurdles before finally getting a theatrical release in India.

After the Censor Board cleared the film with a few sound cuts, distributors were reluctant to buy it since the subject was not commercially viable. Dholakia then launched his own company, Serene Picture Classics, to distribute the film.

However, the filmmaker’s troubles are far from over. Parzania now faces an unofficial ban in Gujarat. The film is based on the true story of a Parsi couple who lost their teenage son during the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002.