One filmmaker staked his entire livelihood in order to make a film about a filmmaker who, coincidentally, risked it all to produce a movie. Now, UTV is yelling “all-in” as the India-based distributor is pulling out the stops in its campaign for Harishchandrachi Factory to be considered as “Best Foreign Film” at the next edition of the Academy Awards.
A biopic about the “Father of Bollywood,” Harishchandrachi Factory was the brainchild of theater artist Paresh Mokashi who risked his personal fortunes – and his house – in order to produce a film about Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, who himself produced India’s first-ever feature film despite a less-than-meager financing and social mockery.
The year was 1911, and Phalke sold off just about everything he owned in order to finance Raja Harishchandra. Almost 100 years later, debutant filmmaker Mokashi just about went for broke in his attempt to honor Phalke’s contributions to Indian cinema.
Yet Harishchandrachi Factory is now complete, and with UTV recently acquiring the rights to the film, Mokashi hopes the distribution firm will parlay its place in Bollywood to strengthen the movie’s presence overseas, justifying the filmmaker’s risky investment.
“I mortgaged my house and pulled out every penny that I had in my pocket. A lot of people weren’t sure of the script and the subject,” Mokashi told Reuters India about his film, which reportedly cost about $600,000 to produce. “My family was absolutely supportive of me mortgaging our house. Everyone in the unit was happy to make do with whatever was available because we all took a lesson from Phalke’s life.”
While Mokashi did all he could to produce the film, at least there was an existing film industry already in place. Phalke faced even greater hurdles in producing a movie at a time when there was absolutely no infrastructure to produce a short, 30-second clip, let alone a full feature-length film.
Yet, Phalke was determined to produce the film despite massive societal resistance against the movie industry as a whole. Since the film’s release in 1913, however, Phalke went on to produce 95 feature films in almost 20 years, and created one of the world’s largest film industries in doing so.
“My aim was to tell the story of the man who started what is now the world’s largest film industry,” Mokashi told Reuters. “Phalke faced a great deal of problems while making the film. He had no previous experience, no money and a family to feed, yet he faced all these hurdles with a smile and a devil-may-care attitude.”
It is the second time in six years a Marathi film will represent India as the final 15 nominees competing for the top five slots in the Best Foreign Film category at the next Academy Awards show. The film has already claimed honors at two film festivals, with Mokashi earning Best Director honors at the Pune International Film Festival and Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema.
Previously, only four films from South Asia were actually one of the top five nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, including: Mother India (India, 1957), Salaam Bombay! (India, 1988), Caravan (Nepal, 1999), and Lagaan (India, 2001). However, none have actually won an Academy Award.