Tuesday 18 June 2013

Ship of Theseus: An acid test for new distribution models

Ship of Theseus: An acid test for new distribution models

UTV and filmmakers Kiran Rao and Anand Gandhi are releasing the indie film in just five cities in India

It is by now a well-known fact that Mrs Aamir Khan, Kiran Rao, has championed the cause of Anand Gandhi’s acclaimed and award winning film Ship of Theseus and also, for reasons best known to herself, decided to go the distance on her own and not use her husband’s powerful brand name.
Now, the very terms ‘acclaimed’ and ‘award winning’ are enough to put a large section of the potential audience off, used as they are to time-pass feel good films with charismatic stars like Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and at the other end of the spectrum, dreck (anything with Salman Khan, Chennai Express, insert your own favourite piece of garbage here).

Ship of Theseus therefore faces an uphill battle in a country where the vast majority of the audience is brain-dead (yes, we’re talking about you, look away now) and the minds that demand thinking cinema are in a tiny minority. Rao and distributors UTV are therefore releasing the film in just five cities Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata. Interesting to note that despite having a strong presence in Chennai and surely having noted that small, intelligent,independent films starring nobodies are routinely thrashing big-budget star vehicles at the box office, UTV has chosen not to release there.

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