A slice of the Pie

When filmmaker Onirban Dhar,better known as Onir,made his first film My Brother.. Nikhil in 2005,his friends and family put up the money. Four years later,Onir still needs to raise money for future productions,and this time he’s invited strangers to invest with him,through popular sites like Facebook and Twitter. “My next film I Am releases early next year. It delves into issues like gay sex and child abuse,” says Onir. “It’s not easy finding producers for offbeat topics,since the audience is much smaller.” Onir then divided the film into four short stories—Abhimanyu,Omar,Megha and Afia—-each 20-25 minutes long that focus on child abuse,gay sex,loss of homes of Kashmiri Pandits and accountability of NGOs respectively.

The process of becoming part of the process is simple—for an investment of Rs. One lakh and above,you become a Co-Producer and are entitled to a share in the profits that the film earns,whereas a contribution of any amount below Rs. One lakh makes the person a Co-Owner who gets credits and a return on investment,but no profit. So far over 125 people have pledged contributions to the film. “The 125 people so far have invested just in Abhimanyu and Omar. There are many more who are interested,” says Onir. He’s quick to add that its not just monetary investments that people are making. “Some people from Bangalore sponsored two days of lunch for the crew when we were filming while others lent us their cars,” he says.

Onir is pleasantly surprised by the small and big donations he’s received from around the world. There are students from Vienna who have sent him 150 Euros each while some from the US have sent him $100 each for the film. He’s been receiving amounts ranging from Rs 1,000 to a lakh from people in Nigeria and Australia as well. “Clearly,people do believe in funding projects like this,” says Onir. Fashion designers like Manish Arora and Aki Narula have made costumes available for free,while actors and his friends Juhi Chawla and Sanjay Suri,and director Anurag Kashyap have supported him with ideas. “Of course people want to know what stage the film is at. I spend two hours everyday on the Internet uploading photos and spending time interacting with my investors online. I owe them that much at least,” smiles Onir.