Abundantia announces key appointments; beefs up creative team

Abundantia Entertainment Private Limited, an independent motion pictures studio, has beefed up its team significantly by adding former Viacom18 Motion Pictures creative chief Shivaji Dasgupta and former Sahara Movie Studios’ Head of Content & Development Shikhaa Sharma to its people line-up. Established with the vision of producing and supporting progressive, high-quality entertainment content, Abundantia Entertainment has taken strong strides, especially in its motion pictures business, in a short span of time.

Top-lining the announcement, Shivaji Dasgupta, an industry veteran of two decades, has played a key role in green-lighting and producing some of the finest and most critically acclaimed films of the last decade. With hands-on production experience to boot, Shivaji’s impressive filmography includes Gangs of Wasseypur, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, Madras Café, Kahaani, LSD, Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai and Chashmebaddoor amongst others. Shivaji will run Abundantia’s Creative & Production business and will have additional charge of Commercial Affairs for his slate of films.

To spearhead Abundantia’s content development and incubation business across films, television and digital, it has brought on board Shikhaa Sharma who was until recently in-charge of the Content and Development function at Sahara Movie Studios and has also served in senior roles in the creative functions at Balaji Motion Pictures and Tips Industries in the past. Shikhaa’s filmography includes recent hits like Maqbool, The Dirty Picture, Kya Super Kool Hain Hum, Ek Thi Daayan, Shor In The City and Race. Shikhaa’s core strength of identifying and mentoring new talent has seen her successfully support work from first-time writers and directors in the past.

Shivaji and Shikhaa will manage their roles independently while reporting in to Vikram Malhotra, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Abundantia. Speaking on the new additions to the team, Vikram said, "Creativity, ideas and innovation are at the heart of Abundantia’s business model. I am delighted that we now have two of the brightest and most experienced creative minds in the business leading the charge at Abundantia. Shivaji has been associated with some of the finest film content in recent times and his production and commercial acumen will significantly enhance the quality and profitability of our slate. In Shikhaa we have somebody with formidable creative understanding and content development ability and coupled with her deep industry relationships, I look forward to taking our creative capability to the next level. I am confident that this dynamic duo will raise the bar for creative content in our business"

Driving the model of creating ‘talent-studio partnerships’, Abundantia has assembled an impressive line-up for the first two years of operations of its motion pictures business. Combined with a strategic stake acquisition of Crouching Tiger Motion Pictures, the studio announced multiple film deals with production houses led by some of the hottest names in the movies business in India. Top-lining the slate are projects with Neeraj Pandey (A Wednesday, Special 26), Shoojit Sircar (Vicky Donor, Madras Café) and Nikhil Advani(D-Day, Kal Ho Na Ho) as well as up-coming talent like Soumik Sen (Gulaab Gang) and a set of talented first-time directors. At various stages of production, the slate will witness releases starting as early as mid-2014.