Do you have an item number?

So we finished our film Pune HighwaymdashBugs Bhargava Krishna and Imdashan independent offering a labour of love based on a play I wrote 20 years agoThe production travelled to many foreign lands and we would sit in bistros and bars looking out at windmills the water Waterloo Bridge Washington Memorial and ponder the future Bugs who also acted in the play would say ldquoBuddy we should make Pune Highway into a small budget filmrdquo And I stalled content to be in the theatre But he persisted whispering in my ear ldquoI am your film conscience fight me all you want but it is inevitable you will make your first feature and then your secondhelliprdquoldquoFilm bana lordquo Anurag Kashyap told me at one of our earlier shows back in 2005 Bugs persisted for 20 years By now he would have even made two of his own filmsCut to 2022 as the pandemic spread its tentacles Its one good deed was it guaranteed that content became king people stayed home and watched cinema of all kinds Bugs said to me ldquoNowrsquos the time to make Pune Highway the film letrsquos write ithellip wersquoll open up the play not an expensive film but an expansive onerdquo We jumped into my first screenplay we cowrote for two months on Final Draft brainstorming back and forth on Facetime We then shot for 40 gruelling days between Bandra and Bhor edited four months We realised that your writerrsquos hat differs wildly from your directorrsquos hat which rests eventually with your own inner editor You need to be ruthlessmdashyou could have shot a twominute scene for two back breaking days to find it has no place in your final product ldquoWhen will your film be releasedrdquo was the question I was asked Paul Anderson cult film director once famously said ldquoForty per cent of filmmaking is the actual making of the filmrdquo mdashthe rest he suggested was the selling negotiating with the studios the suits having their say streaming vs cinema putting on your producerrsquos hat the business end of the projectldquoWho are your starsrdquo was the next question ldquoWe donrsquot have Shah Rukh we have Sarbh Jim Sarbh We donrsquot have Amitabh instead we have Amit SadhrdquoldquoHmm good actorsrdquoAnd the third questionmdashldquoDo you have an item numberrdquoThe question Bugs and I asked of each othermdashis the gap between intelligent cinema and a ldquodhamaal Bollywood picturerdquo a catchy song Clinton Cerejo our music composer agreed ldquoYour film is also set in Karad right letrsquos do a MarathiHindi numberrdquo And so we have a Sunidhi Chauhan songldquoPicture chalegi theatre meinrdquo one distributor asked us ldquoIsnrsquot it an OTT filmrdquoAnother said ldquoBoss therersquos no such thing as an OTT film therersquos good cinema and bad cinemardquoBut thatrsquos March 2025 thatrsquos another chapter in darkened auditoria we will be watched over popcornhellip as we launch in 100 cinemasThe audiences will smell authenticity they will pick holes in your script by their coughing and restless shifting and their shifting their attention away from the big screen to their small blue screens You canrsquot fool audiences They want good content in fact they demand itGot to be tight got to be taut got to be tense Tell them your story gradually be one step ahead of your audience donrsquot spoon feed them but surprise themBut in the present we are a week away from our premiere on the red carpet at IFFI Goa Asiarsquos largest film festivalmdashwe will unearth our film exactly two years from the first day we began shootingIrsquom also old school as is Bugs Bhargava Krishna gotta see your film big on a large screen larger than life where you can hear every tiny water drop from a tap you can hear the lap of wavesmdashthe mesmerising magic of 70 mmAlso therersquos something amazing about premiering your film at a film festival it sets the toneOne thing is for suremdashas I walk with Bugs towards my first Gala opening on my first red carpet therersquos nothing iffy about IFFIRahul daCunha is an adman theatre directorplaywright photographer and traveller Reach him at rahuldacunhamiddaycom