If you haven’t seen it yet, here are your last two chances to catch it in the theatres.
Thursday and Friday. 4.30 p.m.
We’re still averaging about 85 per cent in terms of collections in five days though, in spite of having ‘Eklavya’ and ‘Music and Lyrics’ in the same slot as us.
Sathyam Cinemas had already committed to Warner Bros for The Departed for this week’s release. Also, there’s ‘Ghost Rider’ and Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Nishabd’ fighting for slots from Friday. Deepa Mehta’s ‘Water’ is waiting in queue too but might not make it for this Friday.
So, they called me today to tell me that they are shifting TFLW to the weekend morning slot (That’s so early that I’m sure no one in my target audience will bother waking up on the weekend but if you are an early riser, hey! You can still catch it during the weekend morning slot!)
For the rest of us normal regular people, it’s the last two days to catch the movie.
You can book your tickets by clicking the banner on the right of this page. So there. Another classic example of how difficult it is for indie cinema to survive when big banners and studios are fighting for slots. We surely need more multiplexes, hopefully equipped with digital projection systems.
I should add here that Sathyam Cinemas has been extremely kind to us. They’ve given us all the marketing support we needed and valuable ad space.
Thank you Supriya, Andy, Nandini, Valli, Ashwini, George, Chetan, Rajkumar, Bhavesh and of course Swaroop and Kiran!
You guys have done your bit to support a small film in an industry dominated and dictated by studios.
We are in the process of finalising nation-wide release plans and I will have details shortly. Still contemplating if we have the resources to do road shows across different cities and if it makes sense in the first place. Especially, because promotions for a theatrical release are so much effort and a lot of money. At the moment, it doesn’t seem worth it for one week.
Besides, the revenue for independent cinema, in any case, is not from the box office. In fact, the box office accounts only for not even 5 per cent of the revenue potential. The major revenue for independent films is from satellite and TV rights.
And then, there’s also DVD and video rights. Also, there’s revenue potential from International rights that could turn out to be a bumper, before we finally put it up on the Internet.
People have been asking me about my next film and I wish I could start right away. But this whole distribution exercise is turning out to be an eye-opener. I got a call today from someone who wanted the film for South Africa. They hadn’t even seen the film. She wanted to know how much I wanted for the film over phone, hardly a minute into the call. It sounded like a prank. It probably is. But, the point here is that there are so many markets around the world and so many places that we can reach simply because we’ve made this film in English.
But it’s time to put the channel in place. What’s the point of making another independent film without putting a system in place? I strongly believe that once we’ve established a proper channel and forge alliances with companies and agents around the world, we’re in for a digital revolution.
Indie cinema can be industry by itself. We started out Made in Madras inkOperated! with the vision of making every first time filmmakers dream come true. Which means, if you have a script with fresh thought in it, an original idea, passion and conviction to make your film, we will produce your movie.
Alright, I don’t want people mailing me starting today. So let me clarify, that’s our vision for tomorrow.
First, we need to take TFLW around the country. And then, the world.
MADRAS INK. 