The Indian School of Business, in a sylvan suburb of Hyderabad, is an elite business school. Promoted by luminaries like Rajat Gupta and Mukesh Ambani, it puts students through a rigorous regimen of biz theories and encourages them to make business plans as they study. So it was a surprise when four of its students produced a commercial film even as they kept up with their stiff schedules. What started off as a lark, ended up as a full-fledged production firm, to bring what they learn to Bollywood production.
ISB students Ravi Agnihotri, 27, Abhishek Mohunta, 31, Pritika Idnani, 28 and Sandeep Goel, 30, started off with the intention of making a 10-minute film for the international festival circuit. They pitched the idea to producer Vivek Agnihotri, who visited the campus for a workshop. He liked the idea and encouraged them to turn it into a feature film. Thus did Buddha in a Traffic Jam come into being—the first mainstream film ever to roll out of a campus, if you discount Arundhati Roy’s In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.
“It’s entirely an ISB students’ initiative,” says Abhishek Mohunta. “Why do something small when it has the potential of being big?”
Encouraged by Vivek Agnihotri’s response, the foursome floated Friday Night Productions (FNP), a production house. Their co-producers Phoenix Multidimensions Group and Vivek Agnihotri Creates, roped in actors from Bollywood to perform main roles, and 29 students from ISB in small parts.
The film, with a budget of Rs10 crore, was shot in a month. Vivek Agnihotri, who is the major stakeholder in the venture, says, “We raised about Rs3 lakh. The rest came from investors. Very little was spent on locations as 80 per cent of the film was shot on campus.”
Ravi Agnihotri says, “As a business student, I saw revenue opportunity in it. What connects rural and urban populations? Cricket and entertainment—Bollywood. The market for movies is sustainable. I wanted to make a film with entertainment, humour and a message. Rang De Basanti was shot at DU and had a message. So did Munnabhai MBBS. 3 Idiots was about engineering students—a comedy, but also a reflection of contemporary issues. But no Bollywood film on B-schools.”
Planned for release in the last quarter of 2011, the main roles in the film were essayed by actors Arunoday Singh, Anupam Kher, Mahie Gill and Pallavi Joshi among others. “They’ve been living here, attending classes, eating from the same canteen. Arunoday is the perfect B-school student,” says Vivek.
The film is about two ideologies pitted against each other. “Who are the beneficiaries of liberalisation? All we think about is urban India. Where is rural India? It’s as if 70 per cent have been forgotten, and only 20-30 per cent represent the country. Fifty per cent of our people earn less than a dollar a day. The film raises fundamental questions like these,” he says. “It will stir controversy. That’s the point,” he adds.
Ravi adds, “The movie has entertainment and dark humour. It’s intellectual. It’s about Naxalites and intellectual terrorism. This is an issue youth don’t connect with, but we’re producing a film for the 20-35 age group. It’s a niche movie, an emotional movie which involves playing with people’s minds.”
Buddha in a Traffic Jam is the story of Vikram Pandit (Arunoday), a student of a top business school, who is the blue-eyed boy of Prof. Jamshed Batki (Kher). Influenced by Batki, Vikram unwittingly starts publishing articles authored by Batki under his own name. The articles, dealing with contemporary India are posted on his blog and Facebook. Soon Vikram finds himself split between supporters and opponents of the ideas he is professing.
While the script and screenplay are by Rahul Malhotra and Vivek, students spearheaded the production, each bringing their own expertise to it. Ravi Agnihotri, with five years in telecom R&D, conceptualised the film. Mohunta has experience in international operations and is an audiophile, while Goel is an entrepreneur and Idani comes with consulting experience.
“It was a learning experience. We got an insight into the director’s role, and entertainment biz,” says Saurav Atri, a student who played a cameo and was part of the casting. If the first product is successful, FNP will go solo on their next. In fact, they have already started vetting scripts for that. “We wanted to use this as a platform to help others who have innovative ideas or scripts which can be made into an entertaining film,” says Mohunta. “We’re using Twitter and Facebook to promote the film,” says Pritika Idnani, in-charge of public relations. As they say, there’s no business like show business.
