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“The time is ripe for sci-fi to take the lead”

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Day 3/Int/Experimental Theatre, NCPA at the Mumbai Film Festival 2012 – writes Anubhav Sinha

I walk into a quiet but full auditorium anticipating an event that was very elegantly announced on a large sign ‘Science Fiction Genre – Does the ethnicity of the filmmaker impact his films’? I have had the honour of knowing noted American producer Gary Kurtz (Star Wars, American Graffiti) for over a year through a common friend Julian Alcantara, who moderated the conversation too. When Annu (Rangachar) from MAMI invited me for this event, I told her I would be happy to be in the audience too. Sharing the stage with Gary would be a great honour.

On the day before the event, Gary, Julian and I had a lunch hosted by the festival, flow-charting the conversation. I treasure every moment spent with people who choose to brave the tide. Gary reminisced on how production on Star Wars stopped twice because the numbers would not add up for the studio, how they would get only about $10 million to make a science-fiction film at a time when the average budget for a Hollywood film was $15 million.

At the event, while Gary and I shared our personal backgrounds with science fiction and the tough roads we have travelled making those films, the discussion that interested me most was about the past, present and future of the science-fiction genre in India.
Some fascinating questions from the audience opened the issue very well.

Science fiction films have minimally existed in India, since the black-and-white era with Satyajit Ray’s Paras Pathar (1958) and also his widely reported contribution to the script and designs of Steven Spielberg’s highly acclaimed film ET.  But, the truth is that the presence of this genre in Indian cinema has at best been sporadic.

The Indian film industry did not start as a very organised sector, and there were barely any film institutes to train people in the art form. So while science fiction/ fantasy widely existed in our literature including Hindu mythology, cinematically the genre remained quite unexplored for lack of serious exposure to training and resources.

The good thing in this space is that with the advent of television in India, both the Hindu epics – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were seen on TV and were hugely accepted and appreciated. The visual effects in both were not exactly of world standards but the audience didn’t seem to mind. This should have set a good precedent, and a precedent is what investors look for. Unfortunately, the genre still did not take off.

The success of RA.One (2011) however didn’t boost other films in the same space. Krrish 3 too will set new box office benchmarks, next year, but I know that too will not be seen as a precedent for investors because the success will be attributed to the existing franchise, the power of a hugely successful director and a massive star in Hrithik Roshan. The genre itself will be on the fourth rung or even fifth, after music.

The time is ripe to treat the science fiction genre as the lead crowd-puller to cinemas. Someone has to take that plunge. I am in the process of developing such properties and hope to be able to put them together on the big screen as franchises and as precedents.

Finally, I must thank MAMI for putting together such a wonderful festival. It’s a spectacular combination of organisation, cerebral stimulation and an ensemble of talent and their masterpieces.



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