Combining good content with star power

Combining good content with star power

When it comes to the Marathi film industry, Zee Studios has been consistently backing out-of-the-box projects, which are also entertaining. Some of the films that it has produced include Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat, which went on to become one of the highest grossing Marathi films, and Nude, which won awards at several film festivals and also at the 65th National Awards for Best Marathi Film. 

As the production company gears up for the release of their multi-starrer Dhurala, Mangesh Kulkarni, business head — Marathi, Zee Studios, says, “Zee Studios has been successfully working towards professionally distributing, marketing and picking stories. The most important aspect is working with directors who are willing to get subjects that have different aspects.” Kulkarni is very excited about 2020 as he believes that Dhurala will be a decade defining film.  
  
Recently, Kulkarni visited Sakal Times office, along with the film’s star cast, including Sai Tamhankar, Ankush Chaudhari, Siddharth Jadhav, Sonalee Kulkarni, Amey Wagh, Prasad Oak and Alka Kubal-Athalye. The film, which releases on January 3, is a political drama. 

When it comes to exhibition, distribution and widespread promotion, Marathi cinema has been facing challenges. But Zee Studios has been faring well. “Things have been good for Marathi cinema as they are for Hindi films. It has taken a lot of effort and time to come to a stage as a studio where individually we did not face a problem when it comes to number of shows, timings and audience response,” says Kulkarni, adding that the whole process is interrelated. “When there is a demand, we distribute the film and it gets good show timings and slots. As a studio, we are better off but as a industry, there is a lot of ground to cover. I think, with films like Dhurala, we can combine good content with star power.” 
    
He says that there is a little bit of inhibition on the part of the audience when it comes to watching Marathi films in theatres. “In the South, the audience is very keen to go and watch films in theatres. As a culture, we are more into theatre, literature and other art forms. In the South, films remain to be the only form of entertainment, hence there is a huge craze for cinema,” he says, adding, “The appetite for cinema gives confidence to directors and producers to invest more. It stems from that appetite to consume content in their own language.”
   
Kulkarni says that many independent financiers are entering the industry and the biggest pull for them is the affordability factor. “It’s probably the lowest in the country and that’s why we are seeing a lot of Bollywood actors and non-Marathi producers backing intelligent scripts,” he shares.   

As a studio, their focus has been on backing projects which are high on content yet look commercially viable at the box office. Kulkarni says for Marathi cinema high quality matters a lot. “If a project has high quality, only then the question of profit comes in. We have been balancing that quite beautifully for so long, otherwise you wouldn’t have seen films like Anandi Gopal or Naal. We did not make calculations while presenting or making such films. For us, the quality of content is first and foremost,” he says before signing off. 

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