The Hindu Business Line : Back in action

"We can take risks even when we know that a film may not be a sure-shot hit, because we believe in the integrity and the excellence of the script and the filmmaker"

Nina Lath Gupta, MD, NFDC

Shubhra Gupta

When I catch up with her at the beginning of the Film Bazaar at the 39th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, Nina Lath Gupta is all a-buzz. The diminutive managing director of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) is brimming with big ideas to get the organisation she heads back to where it once belonged: right at the top of the Indian cinema heap. As we settle down in the business lounge of the Marriot Hotel, where the Film Bazaar will take plac e over the following three days, Nina is ticking off a to-do list. The Bazaar, one of the important components of IFFI, is bigger this year.

A film is nothing if it does not have a good script, and the Screenwriter’s Lab, a success last year, is back. So are the one-on-one meetings with film agents, buyers and filmmakers, who huddle over pitches, hoping to hear that all-important click. She’s also excited about the brand new initiative, Work In Progress, which will have scripts and scriptwriters in consultation with global experts who will provide crucial feedback. And that will hopefully get the budding filmmakers come back with a tighter, better script, which in turn will become the kind of film that will be both watchable and marketable.

Because, as Nina realises, it’s not just about identifying talent. It’s also about being able to market it, and those are the twin mantras she’s hoping to use to revive a flagging enterprise, which needs both an infusion of funds and creativity. The money is coming in. At Rs 30 crore over the next five years, NFDC will start getting around Rs 6.5 crore a year: that will have to be buttressed with the leaps of imagination that accompany good cinema. There was a time when NFDC was synonymous with it. For those whose movie memories go back that long, the release of Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron was a huge marker. It redefined the parameters of comedy, invited the phrase ‘black comedy’ to come and stay in Hindi cinema, and created a cutting-edge classic which is as enjoyable today as it was in 1983.

That film, like many other superb cinematic signatures (Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala, Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s Saleem Langde Pe Mat Ro) would not have been made if it hadn’t been for the NFDC. There was nothing like this government of India enterprise, which was established in 1975.Those days, it was called the Film Finance Corporation. But quite soon, given its mandate of promoting Indian cinema in the country and abroad, and providing a platform for filmmakers to make and market their films, it became NFDC.

Right through the 1980s and sporadically though the 1990s, the NFDC flourished. Filmmakers who wanted to cut a non-Bollywood, non-formulaic swathe found a welcoming place where they could find an ear for their ideas, and funding for their films. Such fierce auteurs as Mrinal Sen and Kumar Shahani made a couple of their films with NFDC money (Antareen and Kasba respectively); so did other independent warriors like Saeed Mirza, (Naseem, 1995), Shyam Benegal ( Mammo, 1994), Govind Nihalani (Party, 1984), and younger independents like Pradip Kishen (Massey Sahi, 1986).

Noteworthy films in other languages were also made during this time — Pamela Rooks’s Miss Beatty’s Children (English), Jabbar Patel’s Ek Hota Vidushak (Marathi), M.P. Sukumaran Nair’s Sayanam (Malayalam), Girish Kasaravalli’s Mane (Kannada) are just a handful of them.

The rainbow coalition that NFDC created during this time was a wonderful catchment of Indian cinema — a testament both to the filmmakers who were active during those years, as well as the existence of an organisation like NFDC. Except, slowly but inexorably, NFDC’s slide towards oblivion had already begun. One of the main reasons was lack of money. For someone like this writer, who’s been following the rise and near-demise of the NFDC over the years, it was deeply saddening to hear officials saying on conditions of anonymity: no one’s interested.

When Nina Lath Gupta took over in 2006, she inherited an organisation which was nobody’s baby. The paid-up capital of Rs 14 crore which seemed like a massive sum in the early 1990s had remained static — in 2008, you can make one medium budget film with that kind of money, without anything left over for prints and publicity. This year, UTV produced Shyam Benegal’s Welcome to Sajjanpur with about that much money; Jodhaa Akbar costed about Rs 40 crore.

Other media houses have been colonising the space that once used to be solely NFDC’s. Production companies based in Mumbai are getting into other languages, because that’s a big, big market. Hollywood has come to Bollywood, not just to distribute but to produce, because India’s potential remains almost totally untapped. So how relevant is NFDC today?

Actually, more relevant than ever. It can still make the kind of film a UTV or an Adlabs will not touch. “We can take risks even when we know that film may not be a sure-shot hit, because we believe in the integrity and the excellence of the script and the filmmaker,” says Nina. And to provide a pan-Indian platform for both local and global co-productions is something only an NFDC can do.

Gearing up for a February 2009 release is a film that has come out of the new-look NFDC. The White Elephant, made in partnership with NDTV Imagine, is the story of a man whose life changes when an elephant walks into it. The name is fortuitous. The hard work which goes with a makeover is already in place. What’s needed is a little bit of luck that is so crucial to a film’s success. Who knows, it might help reverse the fortunes of an organisation which has been written off, unfairly and far too soon, as a white elephant.

shubhra.gupta@gmail.com