Enjoy documentaries that go beyond social messages

Social in fabric, serious in nature — is this your perception of documentaries? Then Sophodok, a three-month-old documentary distribution company might help dispel this myth. At least that’s what, city-based Sophy V Sivaraman, co-founder of Sophodok, intends to do.

“We have grown up on compulsory watching of government-funded documentaries about family planning and the likes. Documentaries could be on simple subjects and fun to watch too,” says Sivaraman, sitting in her Andheri office. Piles of documentaries, all neatly stacked adorn the space — all to be viewed by the Sophodok team before they make it to its web store.

The company’s online venture, Sophodok.com, has a collection of over 50 national and international documentaries, up for sale, starting at a minimum price point of Rs300 onward. “An average documentary easily costs Rs500 to Rs700 in India. We have deliberately kept the price reasonable as we want to reach out to more people,” says Sivaraman who ran an advertising agency, Sophy’s Choice, before she bid adieu to the ad world.

So, what made her pursue a business in documentary — a genre known for limited patriots and moneymaking scope in India?
“We are looking at worldwide sales for Indian documentaries. With an investment of Rs25-30 lakhs there is scope to cover over a crore in a year’s time,” she says.

Sivaraman also emphasises  on corporate funding of documentaries as a Corporate Social Responsibility activity, which can improve the documentary-viewing scene in India.

“Puma has done it with the BRITDOC Foundation. If Indian corporates associate with documentaries, it will be mutually beneficial. And it is a good branding exercise,” she says. Coming from an ad woman, we buy that!

To buy a documentary off Sophodok, all you need to do is browse through the website, select a documentary, add it to your cart, and make an online payment to get your DVD home-delivered.
Besides buying, you can also pitch your documentary to Sophodok or interact with Sivaraman on its various nuances. “I am very accessible on Facebook and I do half my business there. If I like an uploaded trailer, I message the filmmaker or vice-versa. Sometimes within a week’s time we have a deal in place,” she says.

For someone, who regarded documentaries to be “boring”, setting up a business dealing in buying and selling of documentaries is unexpected. Lack of mass appeal of documentaries in the Indian market, only makes the situation worse. But Sivaraman definitely senses potential in the field.

To start with, she feels there is a need to get the “boring and serious” tag off this format of filmmaking.

“I watched a Tibetan documentary where ex-students of a college in Tibet get together for a reunion. Personally, I never thought that this subject could be made into a documentary,” she says. Her interest in the format grew thereon, culminating in Sophodok.
And it is exactly the “even this can be a documentary” attitude that Sivaraman desires to infuse in the minds of first-time documentary watchers.