Mumbai, Maharashtra, India: Movie about Open-Air Movies Big Hit
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The film was much appreciated at the Toronto International Film Festival, and has enjoyed a good run at many other film festivals like the Tribeca Film Festival, Cannes International Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival.
Road, Movie will open in India on March 5. Benegal tells Patcy N what to expect.
How did you get the idea of making a film on travelling cinema?
At heart, I am like any other kid, who wants to escape. This movie is about escaping. Besides, all of us go to the movies to escape.
As a child, my parents would take us out on holidays that involved long drives. I love going for long drives, listenning to music, even now. So, I brought together the two worlds -- watching movies and being on the road. This escaping is what the younger generation wants to do. They are looking for different avenues to break free.
Do you think people still watch movies on large white cloths with projectors?
What is amazing about travelling cinema is that it is a modern day phenomena -- it is not something that happened 20 years ago. Seventy percent of Indians watch movies in the open air through the projectors. That figure was given to me by my distributor friend Shravan Shroff, when I first got the idea to make this film. I was stunned to hear that and I suddenly realised that people travel for hours and get together, just to sit in front of a gigantic screen and completely lose themselves. The idea blew me away, so I locked myself in a room and wrote the story.
Patcy N.
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