Indie films' festival success not a guarantee of release: Suri

Actor Sanjay Suri says it is very difficult to predict the commercial release of an indie movie going by its reception in films festivals as its audience is "lazy."
Sanjay, who has mostly featured in indie films like "Jhankaar Beats", "My Brother... Nikhil" and "Sorry Bhai", says while the market for Indie films has definitely widened, it is still difficult to get audiences to the theatre.
"The market has started opening up slowly for sure but this audience is a lazy audience. The rush at the festivals does not guarantee that the film will be commercially released. It has happened to many films," Sanjay told PTI.

More indie films are hitting the screens as opposed to the scene a decade ago but a wide market comes with the pressure to bring in more number of people to theatres.
"People say if 'My Brother Nikhil' had released today it would have done much better, but I would have spend much more."
Sanjay will be next seen in romantic drama "Shab" with his frequent collaborator, filmmaker Onir. The actor says he and Onir have never worried about the commercial outcome of their movies, which have always been off-beat.

"For us, our starting point is always the story, we go ahead and make that. We then try and make sense of it commercially but we never make films keeping in mind the commercial factor," he says.

In the case of "Shab", the journey started far back in 2004, but it took time to produce the film.
"This was Onir's first script, before we made 'My Brother Nikhil'. Somehow it just didn't materialise then. We never gave up on the idea but we didn't know when we will be able to do justice to it.
"We focused on other films, and we had to produce the films independently, there are no studios involved. This was a story we wanted to present and we have finally made it."
Starring Raveena Tandon along with Sanjay, "Shab" is scheduled to release on June 30.