bollywood! bollywood!
what other genre or mechanism is there where we are afforded full unambiguous shameless colour, song & dance in modern day cinema? the guilty pleasure of a massive population stemming from mumbai india and then spreading around the world gives us what are essentially post modern elvis & timeless sirens in full technicolor productions with probably even more hip swaggering cheese, drama & fun.
the massive hindi cultural vehicle which has essentially become a cinema style has been entertaining millions around the world since its inception in the 70s as an infusion between bombay & hollywood although the bengalese film tradition started way back in tollygunge which was in the early 1900s the hub of the evolving indian industry.
tollywood became bollywood with the geographical shift as india took over america's role as the largest film producer in the world & moved to bombay. i guess technically it should be called mollywood these days...
in 2010 i will be producing a low budget bollywood feature film to be shot in sydney which is an australian/indian production. it's an excuse to embrace fantasy, fun and hard work in an intense environment perhaps even more unreal than usual. i mean even kylie's doing it...
it's come on the back of some hard work with my tribe punk monk propaganda & a bunch of us will be heavily involved in this feature which is incredibly exciting follow through for all our humble but big vision short film & event installation work. some of this can be found on punk monk propaganda's facebook, vimeo or youtube pages. most months we can be spotted at sydney's KINO, showcasing intermittent experimental projects.
something on a much larger scale has just happened for another unknown director in uruguay. comparing our work is like dwarf apples and um, precious persimmons, but check out this vid which was uploaded on youtube last month [nov 2009]. so far it's received over 1.5 million views. he's just been sponsored by sam raimi to produce a 30 million dollar feature... the story isn't particularly original but the execution is breathless. all for less than your weekly rent... i did that once too for a script to screen five day challenge for KINO [KABARET] after coming out of a year long deep dark depression which is how i met a couple of punk monks. the landlord suffered and this is the film we made. poles apart from fede alvarez's masterpiece but nonetheless we're very proud:
...and then i was rescued from my deliberate hermit-like isolation by these beautiful people who are the poster kids for buddhism & friendship. they even have a benetton baby for christ's sake. eat your heart out angelina, no international adoption papers necessary.
