Indian Australian's debut film opens for commercial run

By Indo Asian News Service

Sydney, Aug 20 (IANS) A young Indian Australian movie director is making waves with the commercial release of his controversial debut movie in Australia.

'2:37', a teen suicide drama by 22-year-old Murali Thalluri, opened across 50 screens in Australia Thursday. In interviews coinciding with the movie's release, Thalluri revealed how he wrote the script after a friend's suicide and his own attempted suicide.

The Adelaide-based Thalluri told the Age newspaper how his life went into a spiral after a 17-year-old female school friend of his, Kelly, committed suicide in September 2004, leaving a videotaped suicide note.

Six months later, Thalluri, who was then working at the tax office - 'the most boring job you could ever have' - started having kidney problems. It was then that he contemplated suicide.

He gulped down a fistful of codeine tablets with a bottle of whisky. He, however, vomited and survived.

'I tried to kill myself (and) then and there it came to me how people just don't understand suicide,' he told the Australian Associated Press.

He then sat down and wrote the script for '2:37' in 36 hours.

Thalluri was, however, upset by reports that he had invented the Kelly story. The Australian newspaper reported that it had found upon investigation that there was no such death.

'Kelly is not the name and the dates aren't the right dates but the event actually did happen,' he told the newspaper.

He said he had kept the name and the date confidential to show sensitivity for the victim's family.

He told screendaily.com that the family had seen the film and were 'very, very moved - and thankful that I didn't go into detail'.

Thalluri, who has no prior film making experience, also revealed how he had faced difficulties in finding financiers for his project.

He took a book containing a list of 20 of South Australia's richest citizens and started knocking on their doors. Finally, one of the state's biggest property developers said he would support the film - which eventually cost about $1.1 million to finish.

As for choosing the cast, Thalluri took inspiration from the book 'Catch Me If You Can' and conned his way into an Adelaide drama studio as an instructor.

He told the Courier Mail of Brisbane that he found his unknown cast members through contacts made during his 10-week stint as a teacher.

Born to Indian parents, both of whom are doctors, Thalluri is the youngest director whose film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May this year. He received a 17-minute ovation post-screening.

The film has now been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

The young director is, however, heartbroken that '2:37' has been given an 'R' rating, which means it will be screened to viewers of 18 years and above. He feels that the target audience for whom he had made the film won't get to see it.

According to the Age report, Thalluri is currently working on a new feature, a comedy that he describes as a blend of Woody Allen and Charlie Kaufman but refused to give any details.

'If I'm writing something, I generally don't want to tell the world about it because it dissipates the energy you need to write it,' he said.

 

Indian film-makers snub attempts to curry favour
Akash Arora
The Australian

WHEN veteran Indian director Yash Chopra shot Salaam Namaste in Victoria last year, it was supposed to be the first of several top-end Bollywood projects to be made in Australia. And the Indian film industry, with its annual global audience of 3.6 billion (compared with Hollywood's 2.6 billion) was expected to work wonders for Australian tourism which, in part, it did.

The number of tourists from India to Australia in the first five months this year increased by 31 per cent compared with the same period last year. "What The Lord of the Rings did for New Zealand, Bollywood has done for Australia," the federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey says.

It could have been the start of something big. But then Chopra moved the second of his lavish movies, Dhoom 2, from Australia to South America, just before the project was due to begin. And another Indian director, Karan Johar, decided to move production on his film, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, from Australia to the US.

"Australia has failed to market itself to Bollywood the way other countries have," Sydney-based Bollywood line producer Anupam Sharma says.

"It's way back in the race."

The number of Indian projects being shot in Australia is in steep decline. As many as 14 big-budget mainstream Bollywood projects were filmed in Australia between 1998 and 2003. Only one, Salaam Namaste, has been shot since.

Sharma says the number of regional Indian films, television commercials, TV series and music videos being shot in Australia has fallen by 70 per cent since 2003. His company, Films and Casting Temple, line-produced 36 Indian TV and film projects between 1998 and 2003. Since 2003, he has produced six.

Bailey says Tourism Australia has been encouraging Indian projects for the past year. But this, Sharma says, is "more reactive than proactive".

"Tourism bodies of other countries have been luring Bollywood for years with attractive marketing deals. The best example is this year's release, Krrish," Sharma says. "Singapore Tourism Board signed up a $US1million deal with the producers of that film to get them to shoot it in Singapore."

Much to their delight, Krrish is this year's biggest Bollywood hit, and every CD and DVD of the film carries a Singapore tourism logo. But something like Krrish happened to Australia years ago. In 2000, Sharma l ine-produced the Bollywood flick Dil Chahta Hai. The film was shot mostly in Sydney and was a smash in Delhi and Mumbai.

It was a missed opportunity, Sharma says. There could have been Dil Chahta Hai tours to attract inbound visitors and Bollywood directors. "None of the Australian bodies offered us any marketing tie-ups," he says.

Visa regulations were tightened earlier this decade. While the new rules safeguarded the interests of local line producers (in case any of their non-Australian crew members outstayed their welcome), they discouraged a lot of Bollywood projects from coming to Australia.

"From a simple five-day process, the Australian high commission in India started taking four weeks to stamp visas for film crews," says Sydney-based Hemant Watsa, line producer for the film Road.

Watsa says Bollywood is rarely organised and shooting songs in foreign locations is sometimes a last-minute decision.

"But if reaching those foreign locations becomes such a hassle, the producers get turned off," he says. "A Bollywood producer once told me it was easier to shoot on the moon than in Australia."

Australian authorities have woken up to Bollywood's potential, but so far their efforts haven't encouraged Indian directors to come. "Suddenly everyone (Australian film and tourism bodies) has started offering massive incentives to Indian film producers to shoot their films here. But, really, top-end Indian production houses will never come to Australia just for incentives," Sharma says.

Chopra, speaking by telephone from Mumbai, supports this: "We appreciate the incentives offered, but we'll never compromise the quality of the movie for them."

Chopra says he cancelled the shoot of Dhoom 2 in Australia last year after his team felt "the mood of the movie did not go well with the Australian backdrop".

So who exactly are these incentives attracting? "Like any big industry, Bollywood has its share of mediocre, under-funded producers," Sharma says. "Before these incentives were offered, I used to get about 10 B-grade inquiries for every genuine inquiry. Now, its 100 B-grade inquiries for every genuine one."

Also, by offering incentives, Australia is making itself vulnerable to competition from Thailand and Malaysia, Sharma says.

"Due to the low cost of production in those countries, Australia can never beat their incentives," he says. "So now Australia has entered that segment of the incentive-driven competitive market, where it's doomed from the word go."

But all is not lost. Director Harry Baweja, who shot Deewane in Western Australia in 2000, is returning to make his next feature, Love Story 2050. This time, however, he has incentive-driven support from the South Australia Tourism Commission, plus a marketing tie-up, estimated to be worth $600,000, from the tourism body and the South Australian Film Corporation.

"For the first time such a partnership is being forged between a Bollywood production and Australian government bodies. This deal is not just incentives but a business tie-up," says Sharma, who'll be line-producing Love Story 2050.

"All things being equal, we'll roll the shoot in September in South Australia."