Siddharth Roy Kapur: Going For The Oscars Siddharth Roy Kapur's production house has to come to be known for its ability to produce films which have stories grounded in India's ethos, but that resonate on a global level.
By Kabir Singh Bhandari •
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A nine-year-old boy in a village in Gujarat spends one entire summer watching films from the projection booth of a derelict cinema hall. Fascinated by this world, he decides that he wants to be part of this world. This is the story of The Last Film Show (Chhello Show in Gujarati), which is India's official entry for the best international feature film category at the 95th Academy Awards.
Founder and managing director of Roy Kapur Films, Siddharth Roy Kapur, (along with PVR), are the ones responsible for distributing the film, which has been directed by Pan Nalin. Kapur's production house is known for its ability to produce films which have stories grounded in India's ethos, but that resonate on a global level.
But how did the association with this film come about?
"Dheer Momaya, who is the producer of the film is someone who we've been talking to for a very long time to do something together. He is very enterprising and creative and told us that he had made this film called The Last Film Show which was on the edit table and if we would want to watch it as he was looking at partners to collaborate with to be able to take it to the next level in terms of marketing, distribution and the positioning of the film," Kapur tells us.
When he and the team saw the film, they fell in love with it completely. The sense of hope, beauty and artistry, all of it compelled RK Films to become associated with it. But if you look into the library of content that they have produced, the production house has an enviable list that boasts of Raveena Tandon's dark and gritty debut web series Aranyak, Rocket Boys with Jim Sarbh, Priyanka Chopra's The Sky Is Pink among others.
As the founder of a company, Kapur understands that the buck stops with him. Of course, the case was the same when he was leading Disney and UTV, but "you still get your pay cheque at the end of the month when you're working for a company," he explains. "I know that the decisions I am taking, we shall have to live with them for a period of time. Any creative decision that you take is something that you have to live with for a couple of years, whether you say no to something, say yes to something or how you are able to put it all together. And it is this trill which the journey as an entrepreneur provides me that I am thoroughly enjoying," he tells us.
Before starting RK Films in 2017, the 48-year-old Kapur was the Managing Director of the Walt Disney Company India and before that with UTV Studios.
"At the end of my three years with them, which was coinciding with the release of Dangal, a passion project, it felt like the ideal swan song for me at Disney, after which in 2017 I started Roy Kapur Films," says Kapur. Dangal was envisioned when a young person in the creative team at Disney, Divya Rao, came up with the idea for the movie after reading a newspaper article about the Phogat sisters. Siddharth saw potential in the project as not only did it serve as a compelling story but would also be an entertaining one, as female wrestlers would be seen for the first time on the Indian screen.
Coming back to the present, post Chhello and Pippa starring Ishan Khatter, about the 1971 India-Pakistan war, it would be exciting to see the other projects that Kapur has lined up in the months to come, but whatever they are, one knows that productions by Kapur, who is a huge fan of Sholay shall entertain and engage audiences.
The author can be reached at bkabir@entrepreneurindia.com and Instagram.com/kabirsinghbhandari
