The Business of Making Cinema
Sanjay Srinivas, founder and CEO of Chequered Flag Entertainment Company, is an MBA by qualification and a storyteller by passion. He mingled business with passion and came up with many creative projects in the genre of world cinema. Very recently, he was in Muscat to generate funds for his forthcoming film God Lives in the Himalayas

Filmmaking is both a profession and a passion for Sanjay Srinivas. At present he is making cinema aimed at global audience. His approach is different from majority of filmmakers in India who target the Indian market and the Diaspora. His company intends to make films that go through the festival circuits before they get sold by distributors across the globe. So the idea is to tell a local story to an international audience. That is what is called world cinema, which doesn’t happen in India.

The film God Lives in the Himalayas is his first such project, shot in and around Nepal. It is an Indian production made in Nepali language, meant for global audience. He strongly believes filmmaking is all about story telling. When he was young, he amused people by telling great stories of all types. Today he writes, produces and directs plays, documentaries and corporate films. His previous feature film, The Dressing Room, received rave reviews.

His upcoming project is about the adventure of four Nepali Sherpa kids trying to climb Mount Everest to meet God. The crew is Indian and shooting starts mid-February at the base camp of the mountain. The film will be launched at the Cannes film festival in France in May. From there, Sanjay will first take it to several festivals and then come to India and Nepal.

The total project cost is worth US$ 640,000. The company is contributing US$63,000. For this, Sanjay is networking through friends and relatives and has come across investors from countries like Singapore and India, America and Turkey.

Another US$63,000 is coming from the Nepal government’s kitty. The remaining amount has been collected through shares. People who are buying shares directly in this project will get the credit line as producers of the film. This is a unique way of getting funds for films, unprecedented in India. Once the film sells, the profit will be shared amongst these investors. Sanjay was in Muscat to collect the remaining 30 per cent fund for the movie. This is not his first visit. Earlier, Chanakyashastra, a play written and directed by him, received excellent response here in Muscat. This time round also, he was given a warm reception.

Sanjay is very enthusiastic of the outcome. He says, “When you expose a film to the world market, the potential is unlimited. My film, which has kids climbing Mt Everest and has a reputed Hollywood agent as a distributor, will surely get a fairly good coverage in international media. All this put together, there is a strong possibility that the film is going to make good money.”

When asked about his take on Indian cinema, he said, the success of Iqbal, Dor and Bheja Fry shows that
India is now geared towards quality alternative cinema. That’s the future of Indian cinema, he says.

– Susmita De


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