“Innovation is the need of the hour, not only in storytelling but also in the business”
Guneet Monga Kapoor, Film Producer, Founder of Sikhya Entertainment
Guneet Monga Kapoor, who founded her production house, Sikhya Entertainment, in 2008, has over the years emerged as one of the most influential and prolific indie film producers heralding a new era in Indian cinema—cinema that is local in its essence but global in its reach. She is the producer of the 2023 Academy Award-winning documentary short, The Elephant Whisperers, and the executive producer of the 2019 Academy Award-winning documentary short, Period. End of Sentence. She is also the force behind India’s Cannes glory over the recent few years with movies like Gangs of Wasseypur, Peddlers, The Lunchbox and Masaan. She was also one of the first producers from India to be inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2018) and was conferred the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government (2021).
What is the most interesting bit about being an Indian producer today?
There is so much that is unexplored; there is so much to do. I could make The Lunchbox because I raised money in France. There is this treaty between India and France that was signed in 1985, but people hardly knew about it; I was the first one to use it in 2011 for The Lunchbox. The Elephant Whisperers is the first Indian documentary to win an Oscar. Kill is the first Indian film that has been released by an American studio and we are distributing it to around 80 territories across the world. There is much that we have not done; so much we have not achieved. As a producer, there is so much to learn from other countries and implement those in India to benefit our cinema. We have the talent and the technicians; it is just that very few people are willing to take the big risks.
And what is the most challenging part?
The challenging part is that still most people are unaware of what a producer does; what a producer like me can bring to the table. Globally, the producer is somebody who finds the script and makes the project happen. But in India, it is misunderstood as someone who has the money. Here, you will find people who are into other businesses also putting their money into movies.
How was the buzz around Indian content at Cannes and the Oscars…you were part of both. Do you think Indian cinema, especially with a film like RRR, is being hailed for the quality of its content or for just being ‘exotic’ and catering to the Western gaze?
SS Rajamouli is a genius. He not only knows how to capture the essence of Indian cinema but also how to show it to the world. What RRR did was amazing, and people not only took notice but were mesmerised. I think today Heeramandi is also doing something of that sort. But even our tourism is all about selling the ‘exotic’ India. It is not a good or a bad thing. There is a charm about India by default—look at films like Eat, Pray, Love, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. And RRR did a great job of capturing the sounds, colours, music, and essence of that Incredible India. They had a great campaign, and it became the talk of the town.
At the Oscars, along with RRR, was your documentary The Elephant Whisperers—both are diametrically opposite to each other. What is the idea of ‘Indian cinema’ to the global audience today?
Indian cinema is everything everywhere all at once. We are that country that does an RRR and a All We Imagine as Light and The Elephant Whisperers. We are all those different kinds of films and filmmakers. We are a diverse bunch of people, and we celebrate one another’s diversity... which is crucial.
Films like The Lunchbox and Masaan, had created international buzz. In 2013-2015 it seemed Indian cinema has taken a giant leap. But post that there was a lull. How do you see that and how have those movies helped how Indian cinema is viewed today?
One step at a time. In 2010, we were nominated for Kavi [2010 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film category]. In 2011, I was able to take That Girl in Yellow Boots to Venice Film Festival, that’s when I started taking my films to international festivals. 2012 was Gangs of Wasseypur and Peddlers—a 100 per cent crowd funded film… in those days we didn’t have crowdfunding opportunities or websites then, I did it through facebook…and once made, we took it to Cannes. Then we navigated through the French co-production treaty and in 2013 we made The Lunchbox with the help of that. 2014 was Masaan [it was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and won two awards]. Then we brought Danis Tanovic, the Oscar-winning filmmaker of No Man's Land, and made a film with Emraan Hashmi called Tigers [available on ZEE5]. Then we did Soorarai Pottru with Surya [it was screened in the Best Foreign Film category at the 78th Golden Globe Awards]. Then it was The Elephant Whisperers that got us the Oscar. And this year is Kill which we have managed to sell to Lionsgate—it is their first foreign language film. It was the highest-sold film at the Toronto International Film Festival. And all this is because once upon a time we did The Lunchbox. Nothing is overnight.
I was also working with AKFPL [Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt Ltd], after The Lunchbox, I restarted Sikhya and my focus was on India. We did movies like Soorarai Pottru (2019), Pagglait (2021), and Kathal (2023). Between 2017 and 2018 we were making Period. End of Sentence, which won an Oscar in 2019. Films take years to make. But the India story is a constant story. And it is not just my resume, this year we had Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies, and Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light, last year we had Shounak Sen’s All That Breathes, we have been winning at Sundance film festival for the past three years.
And how difficult is it to fund such movies?
Yes, financing these films are hard; India still doesn’t understand the commercials. But that is exactly why you need producers to reinvent the model, hustle through things and find new sources of financing movies, fill out those applications for European coproductions and for crowdfunding. Innovation is the need of the hour, not only in storytelling but also in the business.
India has been making good cinema, be it in Hindi or in any other language. We have had the likes of Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, MS Sathyu, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, but apart from some of Satyajit Ray’s works to a certain degree, Indian cinema has not got an international audience. But suddenly we are seeing Indian cinema making its presence felt like never before. What has brought about this change?
Also, Ketan Mehta, Sudhir Mishra… all of them are legends. But there are two different aspects to it—one is making a beautiful cinema, creating disruptive content, finding innovative ways of storytelling, and the second part is the business of cinema. Both are very different from each other and equally crucial. When you sell your downstream rights—your digital rights, TV rights, and satellite rights etc——in India, you limit the journey of the film. With The Lunchbox and Gangs of Wassaypur we were able to disrupt that. Gangs of Wassaypur was released as an 8-part mini-series in the US with Netflix, it was Netflix’s first Hindi content. That was a deal I did. There also has to be a deep understanding of how the business of cinema works. It is not just the vanilla deals where one person is investing in the film and then you sell your rights within the country. Then, at the most, the foreign audience you can reach is the India diaspora. The Lunchbox was able to reach beyond the Indian diaspora because of the way it was structured; for Kill it is similar, but the business it has done is 10x to that of The Lunchbox. I am not talking about foreign collaborations—Kill is 100 per cent an Indian film, but it is distributed to the top mainstream film distributers across the world and not to the distributors who only put out diaspora films and is controlled from India. If you have a mainstream distributor picking up your film, then you can tap the general audience of that country along with the Indian diaspora settled there giving it a better market and a greater sample size. We had taken the same approach for The Lunchbox back in the day. Also, now there is a new world order with global streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. While a series like Squid Game has broken out from Korea, Indian shows have not managed to do so in a big way barring maybe a Heeramandi or an Indian Matchmaking. The new world order would be a breakout on these international streaming platforms.
Why do you think it is the documentaries and indie films that are making the cut and not mainstream Bollywood?
I think Indian commercial cinema ka woh ambition bhi nehi hai. It is very happy servicing India and the market here. If you want to do something different, you have to find your audience. In my opinion, a film like English Vinglish or a Dear Zindagi would have travelled, but the distribution was not structured the way I just explained to you. It is not about being right or wrong or whether or not we are making good stuff, we are all making entertaining movies; it is about reaching the global audience who are today watching content from across the world. Films like Manjummel Boys and Jigarthanda would have travelled and opened newer doors. Manjummel Boys was a genre breaking film, but it was distributed the way Malayalam movies are traditionally distributed; the good thing is that it still broke out in a rather large way.
