Legally Entertaining

Crowdfunding for Films in India, by Adv. Vaidehi Harshad Samant

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Introduction 

Film financing is one of the most difficult and least understood challenges faced by a producer and it is burdened with perils for the naive. It is an aspect of filmmaking that occurs during the development stage of the project prior to pre-production and is concerned with determining the potential value of a proposed film.

It is known to everyone that till around the year 2000 film industry was not granted the status of an ‘Industry’. Therefore mostly financing a film was a tedious job for the filmmakers, owing to which many money laundering elements started making their way inside the film industry. However, granting of ‘Industry’ status to the Indian film industry in 2001 was one of the significant steps taken by the Indian Government. As a result, the Indian film industry was entitled to bank finance. Still, there was not much improvement in the sector though few banks and private investors had started financing in films. 

Crowdfunding as a mode of financing films: 

In today’s digital age, businesses have developed creative and more innovative methods to draw more funds to launch their projects. Electronic means and technologies to conduct commerce in the film industry have grown exponentially with the crowdfunding platforms like www.funduzz.com, www.catpoolt.com, etc., and continues to expand their influence and capabilities globally. User-friendly modes of film financing are a convenient way for spreading awareness over a particular project and requisites for the same.

 
Crowdfunding an entertainment venture :

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet. It is an emerging practice in Bollywood, and especially for small scale films and documentaries where the possibility of the financial success of the project is very less. \”I Am\” is one of the smallest budget films of 2011 in Bollywood made with the help of crowdfunding. \’I Am\’ won two National Awards, proving this financing trend to be beneficial.

 
Successful movie ventures made through crowdfunding:

In recent times, the film preferences of people have changed drastically. There are many examples of successfully crowdfunded films like Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla’s An Insignificant Man, released in theaters in 2016, raised Rs 71 lakh on its website from around 800 contributors, and is one of the most expensive crowdfunded Indian films to date[1]. Indian films from all spheres are now exploring crowdfunding. Punyakoti is a Sanskrit animation film that centers on a dialogue between a cow and a tiger, with funding of Rs 41 lakh, is the highest collection by any film with the help of several corporate professionals and on Wishberry[2]. TiffinBox is a short crowdfunded Konkani film that was shown at the International Film Festival of India[3]. Actor-director Rajat Kapoor is crowdfunding his next feature, RK/R Kay, from the conception stage on Gocrowdera.com[4].

The trend was also set by Bhaskar Hazarika’s Kothanodi in the regional film industry of Assam, which took to crowdfunding[5] as a last resort. It won the 2015 National Award for the best feature film in Assamese. Kothanodi’s success story encouraged other Assamese film-makers to explore crowdfunding. Another Assamese film-maker, Reema Borah, went a step further. For her film Bokul, which played at the Mumbai Film Festival in 2015, she bypassed all intermediaries and crowdfunded on Facebook, raising rupees nine lakhs for the twenty-five lakh budget movie. In 2019, even Tashkent Files, a film based on the mysterious death of former Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, was completed and released by its maker Vivek Agnihotri with the help of people. He decided to crowdsource his research and released a video asking people to send material, which opened up the world for youngsters to send links, books, and people with knowledge of what had happened [6]. Slowly, this film started to take shape putting light on all angles and theories and Tashkent Files finally released in theaters and managed to run for many weeks, and was a sleeper hit at the box office[7]. In 2013, Kannada thriller Lucia became the first crowd-funded regional film to raise Rs 51lakh in 31days [8]. 

 

Growth of Crowdfunding and possible ways towards the same: 

Wishberry is a famous crowdfunding site dedicated to the arts. Indians are warming up to the concept of crowdfunding. The growth of digital media platforms such as YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Zee5, The Viral Fever, etc. in India, along with the growing rate of mobile viewing, is creating a perfect buzz. Therefore, the mainstream filmmakers and actors such as Sujoy Ghosh, Anushka Sharma, Manoj Bajpayee, Amit Sadh among others are turning to make short digital content like short films, and web series. Almost every Bollywood production house from the YRF Studios to Balaji Telefilms is either getting into digital content creation or is developing its own digital platform, which has proved useful to many small budget filmmakers or digital content creators which may be helped by crowdfunding sources.

 
Merits and Demerits of Crowdfunding: 
Putting out a film on a crowdsourcing platform helps in getting the word out. Big films have a huge publicity budget and they get a lot of media coverage too. In the case of smaller independent films, there is no money left for publicity at all and hence word of mouth helps such films in making their reach to the wider audience. The biggest disadvantage of crowdfunding is you can\’t raise a lot of money through it and thereby, mostly only small budget filmmakers and filmmakers who intend to make films for certain events or film festivals, rather the filmmakers who produce films for theatre release may turn to this mode of financing films.
 
Conclusion: 
The biggest problem that the industry faces, on the creative side and the business side, is financing. It is well known that the industry functions mostly on usurious loans for lack of corporate backing. The plight of small films is even worse. They often get shunted out of theaters to make way for the big-budget movies. There are gross under-reporting and a thriving black economy. Thus, irrespective of the disadvantages crowdfunding can be a good option for such small budget films, and hence development and regulation in this sector is the need of the hour.

-Adv Vaidehi Harshad Samant

Bombay High Court

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