Now, produce a movie with one rupee only

How crowd-sourcing is catching up among the film fraternity

At a time when headline inflation is close to7%, a rupee may not fetch you much but it will certainly give you a chance to co-produce a movie.

You can now contribute as less as one rupee and become a co-producer of Kolkata based filmmaker's independent film―Diamonds In The Sky.

Anamitra Roy, an aluminus of the film studies department of Jadavpur University, floated The One Rupee Movie Project on Facebook on February last year where one can contribute as less as Re 1 and get their names on the credit list as a co-producer. It has already raised more than 50% of the total production cost, estimated to be around Rs 2.5 lakh― and the film is set to be released in May this year. Two promos of this unique movie have already gone viral on the net.

The concept, according to many experts can be termed as crowd funding, and is quite popular in foreign countries. This the first time that a independent movie is being made by contribution of just one rupee.

Though there is no upper limit to what one can pay, you could become a producer by paying only a rupee.

As a return, all the contributors will get a copy of the DVD and their names will feature as co-producers in the credit list. The filmmaker has already collected around 1.65 lakh in and hopes to release the film in May. The budget of the film is Rs 250,000.

Roy's wife Sriparna Dey also is the part of the project as co-director.
 
For making contribution to the film the director has created a blog, apart from the Facebook page,  at http://onerupeefilm.blogspot.in where the details are given. You can send it to a certain mentioned bank account or use Paypal to send money to the director.

The idea came out of nowhere and once we floated the page on Facebook it started receiving good response. I was very sure of the creative content and was not ready to compromise on with that so funding from mid-corporates as out of question. Infact many investors approached on our Facebook page but the typical investor mentality clashed with our motive. So, just to try out we launched the One Rupee Film Project and since then the going ha been good,” said Roy

Roy has created multiple slabs for the people and based on the amount of their contribution one may also get to be the associate producer of the film. For example, if one gives Rs 10,000 then the person will be the honorary associate producers.

Long back in 1976, when celebrated filmmaker Shyam Benegal made Manthan, he had got a substantial amount of funding of the film from the Gujarat Milk Co-operative members. Slowly and steadily crowd funding is catching up in other regions of the country as well.

In South too, John Abraham, not the bollywood actor but a famous theater artist, had made a film named Amma Ariyan which was also received critical acclaim. According to Roy, some independent directors are trying to make short films in Assam, Bihar through crowd funding.

Going forward the director duo plan to send the movie for global film festivals which would propel into a bigger  release domestically. We have some plans to participate in various film festivals.  We don't have heavy connections but we are hopeful that the content of the movie will sail through,” added Roy.

Experts on film making cite  Onir's example for his  National Award-winner 'I Am'. Onir which tapped into social networking sites to find prospective people to  'co-produce' the film by pitching in with small contributions. But Roy feels treating his film and other films such as  Onir in the same category would not be fair as those people have got big names attached with them.

Roy's film revolves around a young filmmaker who works in the fringes of the industry to earn a living. He is passionate about films and believes in creative independence more than anything.