Life of an Outcast is a movie based on theme of caste oppression and religious intolerance. To complete the post-production of the film, Studio Sarvahara has released the trailer and started a crowd funding campaign on Labor Day, May 1st. The campaign has been running for almost thirty two days now and is mostly visible on social media.
Crowd funding has taken the shape of a huge need, and help for indie cinema as stories, characters and narrative of Indie cinema is not fit for the current Bollywood market setup. The first and final goal of the market is making profits. In India, the market of cinema generally follows the formula consisting of racism, sexism and patriarchy. Market is open only for the stories that do not create any discourse, while initiating a discourse is the sole foundation of indie cinema.
Watching Marathi, Bengali or Hindi-language indie cinema, one can see through them society in its true form and colors. They are an honest representation of society’s set stereotypes, hierarchy and circumstances on the grass root and raise many questions on the existing state and system. Indie Cinema has always been pro-people and use of art should be in the favor of and by the people. After taking from society, giving back to it is the proper use of art in the real sense.
Making film through crowd funding is not new to Indian cinema. For example, in 1976, veteran film director Shyam Benegal made a movie by the name of Manthan by collecting Rs.2 each from five lakh farmers of Gujarat Milk Co-operative Society. The movie won many awards and helped the society transform itself into a powerful group called Amul, today.
Pawan K Srivastava, director of Life of An Outcast, will release this movie in 10 subtitled languages and screen it in five hundred villages before releasing the film. The film will be premiered in the same village, where it has been shot. There is no such experiment done in Indian cinema before this. It is very important to take the cinema towards the villages. Life of an Outcast is to be shown in 500 villages before release. The question is why it has become so important.
While shooting in the villages, the children and the youth were the most anxious ones to watch the shoot. They had many questions. How long will the film be? What is the tripod? What is the function of slider? They were involved in assembling all these equipments. Before the shoot, the cinema always reached them through television, but during the making of movie, they were involved in the process from the beginning i.e. the production stage. Now they were also a part of cinema making than just watching it on their television sets. The experience has opened prospects for them to pursue it as a medium to tell their own stories to the world.
When we will screen this film in 500 villages, there will be a strong dialogue and many questions will be asked from us. We also may aspire many youth to take up film making as profession. This movie will be watched in 500 villages of 10 states across the country. New filmmakers of new trends of rural environment can be ready to be introduced to a new world now.
Life of an Outcast’s Crowd Funding Campaign has completed 32 days of a fifty-day campaign and about Two Lakh Rupees have already has been generated. The people who have donated for the film are being given titles of producers. Simplification of the process of cinema making is the prime reason behind it .The film has 72 producers till now. During the Crowd Funding campaign, the film has also got four co-producers. Raju shekh, Arun Kumar Goyal, Narendra kumar Jindal and Mohammed Asif believing it is necessary for the content of the film to reach out to its audience.
You can watch the trailer of the film at www.studiosarvahara.com and support us in our mission to complete this important film.