Indian filmmaker Kanu Behl is creating “Loving Anais,” a star-crossed romance set between India and France, as his follow-up to Cannes Administrators’ Fortnight title “Agra,” which opens theatrically in India.
“It’s form of like star-crossed romance blended in with noir,” Behl tells Selection. “It’s basically about an Indian man who goes searching for somebody from Gurgaon to Bordeaux, and in his seek for that somebody, life takes a special flip, and he falls in love with another person, however they don’t communicate one another’s language.”
The challenge, presently heading towards first draft, has secured CNC Improvement Fund help. William Jehannin (“Agra”) is producing.
Behl’s sexually charged drama “Agra” will obtain a restricted theatrical launch in India through distributor Mantra Luminosity, marking a major milestone for the director who has lengthy hoped to achieve native audiences.
The movie follows Guru, a younger single name middle worker who nonetheless lives along with his dad and mom. Consumed by frustration, he plunges right into a fever bordering on madness, between pathetic fantasies, relationship apps and hysterical self-harm. The movie additionally explores the position property can play in a younger man’s emancipation.
Debutant Mohit Agarwal stars as Guru, with Priyanka Bose, Ruhani Sharma, Vibha Chibber, Sonal Jha and Aanchal Goswami in pivotal roles. Rahul Roy, identified for his romantic lead roles in Nineties movies together with blockbuster “Aashiqui,” performs Guru’s father.
“Making a movie for unbiased filmmakers shouldn’t be actually about going to a pageant,” Behl, whose debut function “Titli” bowed at Cannes’ Un Sure Regard strand, says. “We wished our personal Indian audiences to see the movie. Lastly, my happiest second is, nevertheless small the discharge is, nevertheless restricted the advertising and marketing is, it’s on the market on the earth for an Indian viewers to see, as a result of actually it’s an Indian story.”
The movie will launch with a platform launch technique throughout 100 screens and roughly 150 reveals, with plans to increase in subsequent weeks primarily based on viewers response.
Behl expresses frustration with the infantilization of Indian audiences by mainstream cinema. “Ninety-five to 96% of the stuff we see on Indian screens… is simply Disneyfied, third class, fourth class, third grader, fourth grader, youngsters pleasant content material,” he says. “I’ve a deep religion that folks wish to see extra complicated content material. They’re really now extra starved than ever earlier than.”
For “Agra,” Behl is aiming to achieve past transformed arthouse audiences. “Our complete try with ‘Agra’ has been to strive a extra natural, floor up method, fairly than a high down method,” he explains. “Even when it’s barely inauthentic to the movie, to broad base, since you’re preventing competitors that’s grabbing eyeballs at a special charge.”
“What I’m attempting with ‘Agra,’ realizing the form of movie it’s, is to even lose authenticity, possibly to five or 10% however attempt to struggle the larger monster in a barely extra guerrilla and totally different manner,” he provides.
The movie explores themes of sexual repression, need and transactionality in modern India. “It’s a movie that features within the margins between sexuality, sexual repression, the thought of areas, how sexuality impacts the areas that we stay in, and the way the areas in flip have an effect on our sexual lives,” Behl says.
He believes audiences who give the movie an opportunity will discover it resonates deeply. “The individuals which are inhabiting the movie are just about a mirror to who we at the moment are,” he says. “I feel for individuals who won’t conventionally be desirous about a movie like this, it’s a chance to really feel once more and to achieve that time that we used to know, that state of barely enhanced existence.“
“Agra” releases in cinemas throughout India Nov. 14.
