The first crowd-funded Kannada film Lucia has wowed the Karachi audience after its release on Saturday. It is the first Kannada film to ever be screened in Pakistan. The Pawan Kumar-directed film that released in Karnataka in 2013 has been a regular on the Indie film circuit across the world since then.
The film has been screened in festivals in London, Zurich and Paris while efforts by some impressed audience saw it being screened in many cities in the US, Singapore and Australia. But sending a copy of the film to Pakistan was a huge challenge, the filmmaker said.
“All screenings outside India have been through invitations. We never applied anywhere. Word spread slowly over the last two years about the movie. A number of Indie filmmakers wrote to me on Facebook. It was one such FB connection from Pakistan that initiated the screening to that neighbouring country. They asked for a screening of the film and even offered money. But I was more than happy to get the film screened there than the money it would bring us.”
A bigger challenge was the long wait once it was agreed to screen the film. “They wanted a hard disk or DVD to be sent over.
Technology provided more help after that. Pawan had a 20-minute question-and-answer session with the audience through Skype. They asked interesting questions, and since an effort% is being put to improve the Pakistan film industry, there were questions relating to marketing and funding movies. The film addressed issues about multiplexes and single screens, and they were curious about that too. They asked what my next film is going to be,” Pawan added. The Q&A of the interaction is available online.
Surprise screenings of the film is not new to Pawan. A show is being organised in Illinois, US on April 25.
“When the organisers informed me about the screening, I was surprised and asked them how they got a copy and who gave them the permission. They told me I had given them the permission a year ago and they were unable to screen it then. I had totally forgotten about it,” he said.
News of Lucia is not new to people in Karachi. When the film released in 2013 riding on a strong online buzz, Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune had published its review. Earlier this year, late theatre personality Sanjay Iyer (who also acted in Lucia) spoke about the film and Pawan Kumar during a panel discussion in the Karachi Literature Festival.
Kumar is working on his next film C10H14N2, which is on the tobacco industry. It is again a crowd-funded effort for which he has managed to collect close to Rs 2.5 crore of the budget of 5 crores.
He is vary of regular producers. “Once regular filmmakers come in, they will want a star to be in the film to safeguard this kind of investment. Once a star comes in, the story will change. I do not want the story to change nor the budget to. It is a chicken-and-egg situation. The story I have written needs the big budget, and it will be made with new actors,” said Pawan.
