At least one good thing has come out of the government’s decision to ban the broadcast of Leslee Udwin’s documentary India’s Daughter as far as Mumbai producer Siddhartha M Jain is concerned. Encouraged by the tremendous response to the leaking of India’s Daughter on YouTube the morning after the ban, Jain, producer of the unreleased Hindi movie Kill the Rapist? has decided to stop waiting and start uploading.
Written and directed by Sanjay Chhel and produced by Jain’s company iRock Media as a reaction to the Delhi gang-rape in 2012, the chamber room drama involving three women and a man who tries to rape one of them was stuck for many months at the censors. Kill the Rapist? was also mired in the distribution hell that awaits any movie that is not an A-list production. Jain now plans to tie up with video on demand sites and put the 90-minute thriller on the internet in mid-April.
“The world has shifted in the past one year” and increasing internet penetration now allows for “a global reach for a small film”, Jain said. “I had been thinking about putting the film online for the past two months, and when I woke up this morning and saw that India’s Daughter had gone viral, I took my decision.”
The Delhi-set thriller explores the tensions between central character Anjali (played by Anjali Patil) and a man (Sunny Hinduja) who breaks into her home and attempts to rape her. Anjali and her friends turn the tables on the attacker and subject him to a mock trial, which is supposed to stand in for the questions being raised in society about what kind of punishment rapists should be given, or, more controversially, whether they should be sentenced to death.
Hanging fire
“The film reflects what we are all thinking about in society, the media, everywhere,” said Chhel, a seasoned writer and the director of Khoobsurat, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam and the upcoming Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi. “The film does not show rape happening in a rape way, it is not sensationalist,” Chhel said. “There is violence, tension and sexuality, but it is not of the tearing-off-clothes variety.”
Production on Kill the Rapist? wrapped up in August 2013, and Jain had hoped to release the movie around the second anniversary of the gang-rape. Yet, when the movie reached the CBFC, it was denied a certificate at the initial viewing stage. “The censors were against the idea of a woman defending herself,” he said. “They wanted the man’s attack on the woman to be less real, more sweet. I argued that if he is shown only slapping her and she takes a knife to him, you will think she is loony.” The movie was then submitted to a revising committee, which eventually gave the movie an Adults certificate with a few cuts a couple of months ago.
“I lost the momentum” that has been generated by the movie’s trailer, Jain said. “Also, the debate around rape had lost its effect. It took a British documentary to bring it back.” Since he has a screening certificate, he has the option of releasing the movie in theatres. “I might do a limited theatrical release, but I don’t want the film to just sit in the cinemas,” he said. By taking the online route, the filmmakers get to deliver Kill the Rapist? uncensored to its intended audience as well as escape the “industry dadagiri (bullying) that exists, the whole distribution and marketing system”.
The producer wants to trigger a debate around punishment for sexual violence, especially since he believes that rapists should be wiped off the face of the earth. The question mark at the end of the title is supposed to suggest doubt, but one version of the movie has Anjali kill her tormentor. “I am personally in favour of capital punishment, that too, public hanging,” Jain declared. “But in the film, we have left the question to the audience. The character finds her own way to deal with the attacker.”
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Written and directed by Sanjay Chhel and produced by Jain’s company iRock Media as a reaction to the Delhi gang-rape in 2012, the chamber room drama involving three women and a man who tries to rape one of them was stuck for many months at the censors. Kill the Rapist? was also mired in the distribution hell that awaits any movie that is not an A-list production. Jain now plans to tie up with video on demand sites and put the 90-minute thriller on the internet in mid-April.
“The world has shifted in the past one year” and increasing internet penetration now allows for “a global reach for a small film”, Jain said. “I had been thinking about putting the film online for the past two months, and when I woke up this morning and saw that India’s Daughter had gone viral, I took my decision.”
The Delhi-set thriller explores the tensions between central character Anjali (played by Anjali Patil) and a man (Sunny Hinduja) who breaks into her home and attempts to rape her. Anjali and her friends turn the tables on the attacker and subject him to a mock trial, which is supposed to stand in for the questions being raised in society about what kind of punishment rapists should be given, or, more controversially, whether they should be sentenced to death.
Hanging fire
“The film reflects what we are all thinking about in society, the media, everywhere,” said Chhel, a seasoned writer and the director of Khoobsurat, Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam and the upcoming Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi. “The film does not show rape happening in a rape way, it is not sensationalist,” Chhel said. “There is violence, tension and sexuality, but it is not of the tearing-off-clothes variety.”
Production on Kill the Rapist? wrapped up in August 2013, and Jain had hoped to release the movie around the second anniversary of the gang-rape. Yet, when the movie reached the CBFC, it was denied a certificate at the initial viewing stage. “The censors were against the idea of a woman defending herself,” he said. “They wanted the man’s attack on the woman to be less real, more sweet. I argued that if he is shown only slapping her and she takes a knife to him, you will think she is loony.” The movie was then submitted to a revising committee, which eventually gave the movie an Adults certificate with a few cuts a couple of months ago.
“I lost the momentum” that has been generated by the movie’s trailer, Jain said. “Also, the debate around rape had lost its effect. It took a British documentary to bring it back.” Since he has a screening certificate, he has the option of releasing the movie in theatres. “I might do a limited theatrical release, but I don’t want the film to just sit in the cinemas,” he said. By taking the online route, the filmmakers get to deliver Kill the Rapist? uncensored to its intended audience as well as escape the “industry dadagiri (bullying) that exists, the whole distribution and marketing system”.
The producer wants to trigger a debate around punishment for sexual violence, especially since he believes that rapists should be wiped off the face of the earth. The question mark at the end of the title is supposed to suggest doubt, but one version of the movie has Anjali kill her tormentor. “I am personally in favour of capital punishment, that too, public hanging,” Jain declared. “But in the film, we have left the question to the audience. The character finds her own way to deal with the attacker.”
