“I come from a very humble background. So I started by raising money from my neighbour,” filmmaker Guneet Monga told Asian Voice. Monga’s neighbour Kamlesh Agarwal lent her close to 50Lakh rupees (£5,000).
Monga studied international co-productions and raised money from France while working on UK co-productions. Speaking to the newsweekly about the changing perception of Indian cinema, Monga explained, “When I started around 15 years ago, the term that was given to us was art-house. It was not ‘parallel’ cinema. That actually means you don't make money, and means they're not commercial. So it's a polite way of saying that you make art-house movies is really funny because, in my head, I have always made commercial sense. What is a commercial movie? It also stems down from as an industry we are, we are actually a 100% equity-driven industry. So any money that is raised to make any piece of content and movies needs to be returned with an interest and with marketing and release. There are no government grants for filmmakers.
“In fact, we got an industry status and some bank loans started for the crew but in the 2000s. We've not been seen as an industry per se. From an unstructured unorganised sector, we are still at the nascent stages of being an organised sector. I mean financially and financial institute-wise and how it is very aspirational, it is larger than life.”
Monga has produced films like The Lunchbox, Masaan and Gangs of Wasseypur and more recently Pagglait. She said that the kind of love that she has received internationally in terms of recognition, awards and even box office success has been absolutely phenomenal.
“So when I travelled internationally and spoke about my films, I used to be termed as Bollywood because we are the Hindi language industry. There was an overarching term. They say, ‘Oh, you're from Bollywood!’,” she chuckled.
“When they say Bollywood, they actually mean Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas and expect costume dramas, or high school music sets. You know all the saris and jewellery and slow-motion shots of chiffon flying in various locations, Swiss Alps, Yash Chopra’s cinema or Bhansali’s cinema. That is really what defined Bollywood over the years, and that is what our definition became,” she added.
According to Guneet, this generation, towards the end of 100 years of Indian cinema has actually grown up seeing and loving Scorsese, and Ang Lee and seeing a lot more global cinema. We wanted to tell thrillers or dramas to society and not do more escapist content.
Yet, she mentioned that for The Lunchbox, many asked her why, ‘there is not one song, there is no chiffon flying and there is nothing and it's too real?’.
Understanding the audience sitting far away
But how does Guneet Monga the producer understand global audiences sitting in Mumbai? She said that when she started, Netflix and Amazon Prime were not in India. They started opening their offices in 2016-17.
“We are talking about 2009-12. For me, it's I don't think I've ever reverse engineered anything. I don't think I've ever thought about what works at a certain festival or in a market. I generally feel like global emotions are similar, but the more local you are, the more window you give to audiences about back home. I actually was always very irritated by India being seen as the land of snake charmers. You know, where people have to still walk in rain to find a phone booth to make a call. A lot of international films did that who came to India to shoot and it used to really irritate me because they're really pronouncing the third world,” she told the newsweekly.
Monga understands that the diaspora may not have been able to travel and experience their homeland in the last few years due to the pandemic, but she affirmed that India is now rising as a superpower. “India is all-encompassing, I would say India is a Maharaja Bhog Thali where there are all kinds of tastes - there is Khatta (sour), there is meetha (sweet) and there is salad and more.
“While there are amazing filmmakers, like Raju Hirani and Sanjay Leela Bhansali doing amazing big-picture Bollywood content, it allows us to also co-exist,” Guneet told Asian Voice.
In 2019 Guneet Monga won an Academy Award, an Oscar for her short film Period End of Sentence. Reminiscing that moment, she said, “I have hoped that these emotions are universal and that has resonated with an audience of diaspora and non-diaspora or non our diaspora is actually very powerful. So we do have the big ticket action thrillers and to find saris and Alps, where we also have global standard independent cinema, which comes in every language in India, which is in Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Punjabi, Kannada, Marathi, and that is the India I'm proud of. So in the Indian film industry, I'm really proud of it and I'm very happy to have found my language.”
Pan Indian cinema
Monga believes that the language of Indian cinema is many languages put together. She said that it's amazing that people in the North are now able to love and value Malayalam cinema and also the other way around.
“I think it is just the start of bringing our country together. I almost say it should have happened way before. But now with OTT and subscription, there is access and I think Covid kind of accelerated that access, where people were consuming. And I just think it's a beautiful time to be a part of Indian cinema, especially because now is the time because I actually feel some of the best films are happening in Malayalam. And it's a matter of time before they will be popular globally on an OTT platform. So it's really the industry is really coming of age and taking a shape where there's space for many more filmmakers, many more people like me to come in. There is money. There is a great career opportunity, and there's time to do good work.”
