Posts tagged Miriam Chandy Menacherry

Documentary on rat killers to get theatrical release

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1 year ago
by Fenil Seta in

Documentary on men who hunt rats in the city is finally getting a theatrical release in India

By Shakti Shetty (MID-DAY; April 18, 2012)

 

At 16, he dreamt of becoming a Bollywood dancer but instead, Behram Harda ended up supervising the counting of dead rats in the Pest Control Department of Mumbai. At 60, Harda’s dream of appearing on the big screen is about to come true with The Rat Race — releasing in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi — of which he is a part of.

The Rat Race is a true-life account of the city’s rat killers. Every night as the rest of the city sleeps, young boys armed with torches and sticks set out to bring back 30 dead rats that are counted every morning.

The rats are then disposed in the Deonar dumping ground where they are either incinerated or just dumped. The filmmakers could not capture this aspect as they were refused permission to shoot there. Many of the boys in the occupation are educated and aspire to become Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) officers someday.

Dark, disturbing yet humourous, the entire film was shot over two years amidst the city’s changing seasons and circumstances of rat killers. The Rat Race captivated the audience in Cannes where it was first narrated to an international jury and then had its world premiere in Amsterdam. But due to budget constraints and the lack of endorsement, it couldn’t be released in India before.

Filmmaker Miriam Chandy Menacherry who documented the story says, “The theatre release in India is an More >

The struggle for indie-pendence!

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1 year ago
by Fenil Seta in

Indian film-makers are discovering new ways to fund documentaries and movies that lie outside the mainstream

Pronoti Datta | TNN (THE TIMES OF INDIA; August 21, 2011)

 

The biggest draw of the Naya Cinema Film Festival, which took place last month in Mumbai, was a curiosity called Gandu (see pic above). Directed by Kaushik Mukherjee, who prefers to be called Q, the film generated a lot of prurient interest thanks to its famously graphic sex scenes and bold language. But the screening was cancelled at the last minute, as the police refused to provide security at the venue: the film does not have a censor certificate and protection was needed in case the moral brigade showed up.

What Gandu, a film about a frustrated rapper and his rickshaw-puller friend who embark on a porn and smack-filled excursion has done (apart from demonstrating that Bengali doesn’t lend itself solely to the melodic tunes of Rabindrasangeet) is to recast attention on independent cinema. Gandu is almost entirely funded by Overdose Joint, a production house started by Q seven years ago. “For Gandu, I didn’t want any external support,” he says. “I wanted it to be a cheap and dirty film.” Q isn’t even sure he wants to apply for a censor certificate for the film which has been shown in a few “underground” screenings. “I’m not sure what use the certificate will be,” he says. “I’m not sure whether I want to cut the film.” He adds that he hopes the film will attract foreign distribution channels in film More >

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