OLD PEOPLE MAKING FILMS

Film making is no big deal in our generation. Pensioners learn how to make movies in community centers. There are high schools where the art of communication skills are taught. Everyone with a digital movie camera can produce a film for a birthday party, an anniversary or a memorial service.

But frail elderly people making films in a nursing ward ??—that sounds like fiction. Nevertheless for the last eight years Miri Boker, an enterprising occupational therapist who also learned filming, has been producing movies with the patients in the chronic ward at Neve Horim in Jerusalem. Miri sees this activity as a therapeutic venture; the product (a completed film written and produced by the residents) is not the most important thing—“it’s the process that counts.”

However the seven films that have already been produced in this ward, as well as 23 other films that Miri has supervised in nursing homes all over Israel, are entertaining, enlightening and heart warming in their own right. Both the staff who are heavily involved in the production, as well as the family and friends who are invited to see the films are most impressed.

The procedure to produce a film usually takes months. The residents who are interested meet to plan out the various aspects of film making. The first step, according to Miri, is choosing a story, a plot and then writing the script together. For instance the first film ever produced involved someone who had lost the picture of her beloved husband. Instead of turning to the staff of the ward, she asked other inmates to help her find it. Along the way the actors/patients find love, friendship and other lost items.

There are often arguments about the theme of the film and how it should be presented. The members of the group all express their views, sometimes in very strong terms. In the end, however, they have to reach a decision, and this process is already an example of how the project is empowering. “Very few matters in an institution for chronic patients are left to their decision,” says Miri. Here they have the opportunity to determine something substantial and important.

Next Miri or another member of the staff (usually another O.T. or a social worker) writes the story as a play. She presents the finished product and again after much discussion a final version is reached by common consent. “The second step involves auditions for the various parts,” says the organizer. Once again it is the elderly who decide who gets which part. Once again there is potential for being hurt or resentful, but in the final analysis the group decides.

Rehearsals can take many weeks. Sometimes an “actor” gets sick or even dies and has to be replaced. That is always a difficult moment. The staff have to cooperate, and sometimes are even “roped in” to take a part. “Actually, the whole Home was involved in the excitement,” says Ronit, a worker at Ganei Ye-elim in Beer Sheva. There the patients in the chronic ward produced a film called “Chag Sameach” and it involved the question of where it’s better spend the holidays—at the children’s home or in the Home. They weighed the fact that at their offspring’s home there’s often a lot of noise and they feel that they’re intruding; but in the ward the atmosphere isn’t holiday-like. “We don’t push a particular view,” says Ronit. “We let the story unfold and everyone can learn from the film what they think suits them. It shows them that they have choices.”

Once rehearsals have gotten the performance down pat, the big day (or days) of actual filming arrives. A professional photographer is on hand from 9:00 A.M. in the morning until 7:00 P.M. at night. The filming is done as a marathon for three or four consecutive days. Yet Miri points out the frail elderly are often up to the challenge and long hours more than the overworked staff who have to adjust to three days of tumult and upset schedules. “It’s like a happening; it’s exciting; everyone feels the electricity in the air,” says Ronit. Editing is also performed by a professional, and then the finished product is shown, first to the participants, and then to the staff, friends and relatives of the whole institution.

“This is always a very big event,” says Miri. The elderly performers’ self image is magnified, their families look at them in a new light, and the medical staff claim that the experience has real therapeutic value. “I didn’t believe that I could do it,” said one matron of 80 whom despite the fact that she is wheelchair bound, was one of the main actresses in a play about loneliness.

“The movie fights our battle,” said another participant who took part in a rather controversial film on the “Bad Caretaker”. “We didn’t mean a “metapel” who hits people or is cruel to them; but we showed up those who take a long time in answering our call or who act callously to our needs.” Miri thought it was very brave of them to choose this subject. Individually they would have been afraid to bring it up, but they found that “in numbers there is strength”, and they backed each other up on what is a very pertinent subject to patients in a nursing home.

With the help of ESHEL, the branch of the Joint Distribution Committee which deals with services for the elderly, the movie making project has spread throughout the land. Miri is kept busy running from project to project in Dimona, Tel Aviv, Beer Sheva and elsewhere. The idea has been taken up by Sheltered Housing Homes and Day Care Centers where the elderly are more independent. The subjects they have chosen for their movies indicate the different stage of their lives: Coping with Widowhood, Intergenerational Relationships; Romance in Old Age, etc. In one lovely story a man who always dreamt of being a writer but never revealed his talents to anyone, takes over the program at a senior citizen club when the leader is sick. He tells a story that he himself wrote. More and more people wander into the room to listen and stay fascinated. In the end he becomes a professional story teller and the group members encourage him to develop his skill.

A number of the movies that have been produced are now used as educational tools in community centers, staff training workshops, support groups for family members and even in schools. The patients in Beit Shirley in Dimona produced a film on “Will He Visit Today or Won’t He.” It shows a lobby full of old people, many in wheelchairs, sitting around, waiting to see who will visit their aged parents during visiting hours. One old man’s son never comes but the father still sits waiting. One of the old guys asks, “Why don’t you call him and tell him to come?” Miri thought that was a legitimate question, but as in so many instances, she learned much more than she taught. In the discussion leading up to this scene, one of the women insisted, “No, don’t you understand; it’s not the same if he comes because his father asks him. He has to want to come on his own accord.” The others accepted her view, and this exchange is in the film.

“The hardest thing in a nursing home is fighting apathy,” says Miri Boker. When we include someone who’s not involved, who claims she or he doesn’t have any talent, or worse still, doesn’t have the motivation to join in making a film, and then over time get them to join, and they develop, and gradually show an interest, and also begin to open up like a flower in the spring sunshine,-- that’s the best part of this job”. The film maker/ therapist continues, “It’s wonderful to see the interaction, the friendships that are formed, the creativity that comes to the fore at the age of 85 or 90 and the way they learn to express what they really feel.” Both producers and participants share in a comment heard in Neve Horim, “This is one of the best periods in my life.”

Source: http://www.ou.org/index.php/shabbat_shalom/article/34838/

Bollywood extra large

Kaveree Bamzai

April 4, 2008

There’s a lot of action in Bollywood this season and not all of it onscreen. Actor Akshay Kumar is celebrating his Rs 20-crore price tag by buying a three-acre Portuguese heritage bungalow on Goa’s Anjuna beach. Kareena Kapoor has just bought herself an apartment in Bandra but is too busy to move. Apoorva Lakhia, a director, who is still owed Rs 11 lakh by his last producer, has just ordered a BMW on the basis of the signing amount for his next movie. And actor-director Rajat Kapoor, who spent seven years struggling to raise Rs 30 lakh for his second film, now has a blank cheque to make five films for Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC). He’s marking the occasion by working out for a towel scene written into the Rs 5-crore movie his friend is directing. From corporates in Hugo Boss suits to independent producers in Gucci T-shirts, there’s a new buzz in town. It’s the new economy of Bollywood and it’s extra large. Everyone’s speaking a new language. Stars are called talent, movies are projects, selling films is de-risking and buying them is building intellectual property rights. Over the next 15 months, even the sceptics will start using the jargon as listed companies and private producers proceed to spend Rs 3,000 crore on making movies. Reliance alone has an intended fund of $1 billion (Rs 4,000 crore), of which it has committed Rs 500 crore. Between them, Eros, United Television (UTV) and Indian Films, an affiliate of TV18, have raised $45 million, $70 million and $110 million, respectively, from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London, which will soon find their way to starry back pockets and busy studio floors. Then there are companies that have gone public, 12 since 2000, which have raised another Rs 1,000-odd crore through their IPOs. The number of releases has gone up—the average number of what are known as high grade Hindi film releases has risen from 1.15 per week in 2001 to 1.71 in 2004—as has the number of prints. Everyone’s earning more. Aamir Khan has just been paid Rs 20 crore plus a share of the overseas profits for the remake of the Tamil hit, Ghajini. Anees Bazmee, who charged Boney Kapoor Rs 1.5 crore just three years ago for writing and directing No Entry, is now asking for Rs 10 crore a film. Katrina Kaif who thought she got lucky when Vipul Shah paid her under Rs 1 crore for Namastey London has just signed a Rs 6-crore two-film deal with Indian Films. Priyanka Chopra has a two-film deal with UTV for Rs 4 crore. The scale has magnified. Last year, when Eros bought the world rights of Om Shanti Om from Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment for Rs 73 crore, it looked like the final frontier had been crossed. This year just the domestic theatrical rights of Ghajini have been sold for Rs 53 crore—all the rights put together add up to Rs 93 crore, with the highest bid for worldwide satellite rights at Rs 21 crore. Last fortnight when Race released worldwide with 1,600 prints, the industry rejoiced at its new proportions. But already Ghajini, for which shooting will go on till May, and Singh is Kinng, which has days in Egypt left, are planning to release across 2,000 screens worldwide. It’s a function of growth in attendance, rise in the number of exhibition centres and simply, much better marketing. Take an example. Last year, Saawariya and Om Shanti Om released on the same day, each threatening to undercut the other’s business. It didn’t happen. While the Rs 36-crore Saawariya made Rs 57 crore, the Rs 25-crore Om Shanti Om made Rs 110 crore. It is no surprise. Multiplexes, with their higher priced tickets, are booming—while 33 were added in 2006, 41 were built in 2007. It’s a great time to be the “talent”. Neil Nitin Mukesh, star of Johnny Gaddar, a Rs 10-crore film that few managed to watch, is demanding Rs 1.5 crore. Sagar Bellary, who made his first film, Bheja Fry, for Rs 60 lakh, which went on to make Rs 12 crore at the boxoffice is making his next film, Kachcha Limboo, with Sahara at a budget of Rs 5 crore. Madhur Bhandarkar who thought he had arrived when he could make both Corporate and Traffic Signal for Rs 3.5 crore each is now helming the Rs 18-crore Fashion for UTV. Even directors who’ve had mixed box-office results have their hands full. Sujoy Ghosh whose second film Home Delivery was a spectacular failure, is now directing Alladin with a budget of Rs 60 crore for Eros, while Vivek Agnihotri, the director of the middling Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal and Chocolate, has a Rs 3.5 crore contract from Reliance. Even the suits have benefited. Two years ago Sandeep Bhargava had quit advertising and was just one man working from his Pali Hill home on a Dell laptop. Today, as Indian Films CEO, he sits in a 5,000-sq ft office overlooking the Mahalaxmi Race Course. Five years ago, Ronnie Screwvala would wait outside the Doordarshan director-general’s office for an appointment. Today, as the UTV Group CEO he can greenlight a 16th century romance between Akbar and a creatively imagined princess for Rs 33 crore and come out smelling of roses with the box-office delivering Rs 120 crore in 51 days. Two years ago, Ritesh Sidhwani was just a smart young man who made one film in two years with his Maneckji Cooper school friend Farhan Akhtar. Now their Excel Entertainment has a five-film Rs 250-crore deal with Reliance, which has enabled him to make three films a year. Simply put, Bollywood has grown because more people are watching its films. If admissions in 2001 were 2.8 billion, in 2006, the figure went up to over 3.9 billion (compared to just 1.7 billion for the US). Similarly ticket sales too have grown, from $593 million in 2001 to $1.4 billion (Rs 5,600 crore) in 2006, pygmy like when compared to the 2007 US box-office revenue of $26.7 billion but, still significant. And the audience has grown because avenues have. Take a look. The domestic theatrical division which was just 12,000 single screens earlier, now encompasses multiplexes (660 screens, set to grow to 1,800 by 2012-13). There is an Adlabs in Pathankot and a PVR in Latur. The number may be tiny compared to even other Asian nations—in 2004, multiplex penetration in India was just 1.6 per cent, compared to 62.5 per cent in Japan and 70 per cent in Thailand—but even the format has expanded, from print to include digital cinemas as well. Similarly overseas. Not only have the number of prints expanded but also the format, with digital screens in 50 territories now. Home video now includes VCDSand DVDs. Music now includes the physical as well as the digital format with songs being downloaded on the mobile and Internet. Television rights include satellite rights to multiple broadcasters with a cap on airings, DTH, and inflight rights. Now, movies can be extended with infilm placements and merchandising. Also there is a reduction of the time window for each format—even a successful movie such as Jab We Met was out on home video in less than three months. The market has expanded geographically as well. Sidhwani for instance has just sold Don for 150,000 (Rs 93 lakh) to a distributor in Germany, where Shah Rukh mania is at its peak. Pakistan is slowly showing signs of releasing Indian films legitimately. UTV’s Goal has already made $500,000 (Rs 2 crore). Race had a 15-print release across nine Pakistani cities, while Taare Zameen Par will also have a 15 print release there. Even in traditional markets such as the UK, the scale has gone up. In 1989, Kishore Lulla of Eros released Sanam Bewafa in one theatre in London. Last year, he had a grand premiere of Om Shanti Om at West End’s Empire cinema, apart from releasing it in 51 theatres in England. With corporates insisting on electronic ticketing in even territories such as north Bihar now, greater transparency is showing real returns, which stars now have access to. Which is why all stars are either turning to co-productions or demanding a fee plus a share of the revenues. Take the example of Rajkumar Hirani’s film, tentatively titled Idiots, which he wanted to do with Shah Rukh. The mere suggestion from the actor that he could co-produce the film led to an exchange of letters between him and Hirani’s long-time producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra. For many, becoming an actor is a smart career move. Take Akhtar. Instead of sitting around twiddling his thumbs for his sequel to Don to materialise with Shah Rukh—now slated for April next year—he has turned actor for his production company. The first of the movies, Rock On, directed by Abhishek Kapoor, about a band is almost complete while he is getting ready to start shooting for sister Zoya Akhtar’s long-pending project, Luck By Chance, and then begins directing Voice from the Sky in September. Luck By Chance perhaps typifies the importance of stars more than anything else. Its script has been ready for four years now, but has hung fire because of casting problems—at one time it was supposed to star Vivek Oberoi and Tabu. Not surprisingly, several deals are being re-negotiated. When Soundarya Rajnikant and Pooja Shetty first agreed to co-produce the multi-lingual animated feature Sultan The Warrior, starring Rajnikant, the budget was agreed at Rs 8 crore. By the time they signed on the dotted line, Soundarya as head of Ochre Productions and Shetty as director of Adlabs, the budget moved up to Rs 22 crore. Within a year, by which time Shetty had exited from Adlabs, Soundarya has not only managed to escalate the budget of the digital film to Rs 60 crore but has also wrested total creative control. She’s all of 23 and calculates that her earnings from the film will vary between Rs 225 and Rs 275 crore. Take the buffoonery over Welcome, which almost matched its onscreen goings-on. Having made Welcome for Rs 25 crore, Firoz Nadiadwala may have thought himself lucky when Indian Films and UTV, fresh from having raised new money in London, chased him for the two-years-in-themaking comedy’s worldwide rights. He asked Indian Films for Rs 47 crore, which UTV upped to Rs 50 crore. Having bought it, UTV then re-sold it to Indian Films for Rs 55 crore, happy with a profit of Rs 5 crore. But it’s Indian Films that’s now sitting pretty, with Welcome making Rs 110 crore in revenue. But is it Bollywood shining or Bollywood shamming? Several independent producers, who relied on the old system of advances from individual exhibitors are now idling their time. Studio floors in Mumbai are booked— as a result, a city like Bangkok currently has five Hindi films being shot almost simultaneously. Everyone is signed on in “non-exclusive contracts”. So while Anurag Basu directs Hrithik Roshan in Kites, to be co-produced with Eros and Carving Dreams, UTV has already announced a three-film deal with him. While Imtiaz Ali gets ready to direct a film for Saif Ali Khan’s Illuminati Films, Sajid Nadiadwala and Shree Ashtavinayak have also declared he is directing their next films. There is a certain amount of desperation in the air, with companies signing on whoever they can find. Almost anyone will do. UTV has announced a two-film deal with Shahid Kapur, a two-film deal with John Abraham and even Kangana Ranuat (who is barely four films old). And to think that just two years ago, when Adlabs offered Akshay a Rs 14.5 crore deal for four films and Hrithik Rs 35 crore for three films, it seemed as if the Rubicon had been crossed. As strategic consultant Prabhat Choudhary puts it, “Bollywood launches a new consumer product every Friday with one-tenth of FMCG budgets.” And every Friday, the product gets bigger. The advent of the film school generation (from FTII products, directors such as Rajat Kapoor and Sriram Raghavan, to foreign trained Shimit Amin and Manish Acharya) and advertising gurus (R. Balki and writer Jaideep Sahni) has lent a new substance to the old fashioned style of storytelling. It has coaxed Saaed Akhtar Mirza out of retirement in Goa to make Ek Toh Chance for PNC and caused Sudhir Mishra, who couldn’t make a film for seven years, between 1996 and 2003, to coast from one studio floor to another. It’s the nature of the money. It demands—and gets—more movies. And a more adventurous spirit. Source: http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/content_mail.php?option=com_content&name=print&id=6615