Filmmaker Sanjay Chhabria on rise of Marathi cinema & women-focussed films
Born to a business family and son of renowned producer Gordhan Chhabria, one of the leading overseas financers and distributors of Hindi cinema, Sanjay Chhabria had an early exposure to the world of cinema. Not surprisingly, Sanjay Chhabria, today, is a vital contributing figure in creating a change in another world of this very industry in time.
Eventually taking off on the mantle of independent footing, he took his vision further when he independently floated a video publishing company, Everest Multimedia. Everest marketed and distributed home videos of Hindi feature films, building a strong library of over 125 films in a short span of three years, including films like ‘Khuda Gawaah’, ‘Aankhen’, ‘Arjun’, ‘Shola Aur Shabnam’, ‘Nagin’, ‘Jaani Dushman’, ‘Kati Patang’, ‘Amanush’ and ‘Naram Garam’, stirring his direction to an even larger pool of execution in the entertainment section.
Another venture, another effort at fleshing out the nuances for this segment specifically from distribution and the business perspective, eventually led him to going with his ‘gut’ as he ventured into production with Mahesh Manjrekar’s ambitiously written ‘Mee Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy’. Years of understanding cinema, the pulse of a good script and the need for meaningful cinema, and a rational decision was made to produce it. A decision which paid off brilliantly, as not only did the movie went on to becoming the highest grossing Marathi film of all time, it inspired multitudes. One hit followed after another, and there were memorable classics such as ‘Shikshanachya Aaicha Gho’, ‘Moraya’ and ‘Tukaram’, which followed and met with equal applause, both critically and commercially.
In conversation with Adgully, Sanjay Chhabria speaks about his journey, portrayal of women in Indian cinema, regional cinemas pulling off new records, his upcoming projects, and more.
Please tell us about your journey as a filmmaker.
I have been in this business now, dealing with Marathi, for instance, for the last 19 years; I had started out in 2003. We started as a home video publishing company, then we got into aggregation, then subsequently we progressed into film production and now we are a full-fledged independent studio. So, it has been a very interesting journey. I have been a part of the Marathi industry right through the growth phases of the industry. So, we are in a good space now. We’ve done all the hard work. We were in an interesting space and we have created an identity for Marathi cinema. We have gained that respect in the industry. We are doing a lot of mainstream films now. We do about four films production wise on an annual basis. We have a library of over 250 titles, which are aggregation titles. We have won several state awards, as well as national awards for our movies.
We have a music label also, where we have a library of 456,100 songs, which are syndicated all over on all national and international platforms. We have our own YouTube channel, Everest Marathi, which is very popular among the Marathi audience. It’s been an interesting journey. And we are scaling up in web shows as well in the Marathi cinema space.
Why do you think your film ‘Ananya’ is worth telling on the screen?
The story of a female protagonist who emerges out of a difficult situation is the story of a young happy-go-lucky girl who was studying and giving her exams and planning for her chartered accountancy exams. Suddenly there is a mishap in her life, where she loses both her hands. What happens next is very, very interestingly portrayed by writer Pratap Phad. ‘Ananya’ was first of all a play. It was later on converted into a fledged theatre production or drama. And we have now cinematically adapted it and made a feature film out of it. All the three versions have been directed by the same person.
What really attracted me and drew me towards the story was that it's the story of a winner. It's not a depressing tale of somebody who has lost. It's a story of how a woman emerges triumphant, and she does everything with her legs, and there is a big novelty factor in it. Hruta Durgule is the lead protagonist of ours, we're in fact launching her in this film. Prior to this, she is a popular actress on TV and a household name. She has done a lot of theater as well. So, there is a novelty in how she overcomes all these challenges, and emerges triumphant in dealing with the situations that she finds herself in. So, it’s a very strong, emotional subject. And these kinds of subjects usually do start slow, but they find their legs among our audiences. We have plans to go multilingual with this, maybe produce it and make it in different languages as well.
How has Indian cinema evolved in terms of women portrayal in movies?
I think Cinema and Bollywood industry or even other industries have come of age. There was a time, a long time back, where cinemas were very male-dominated. That’s not the case now. You have female protagonists and big actors in every regional language. For example, the South has its share of names. Bollywood has female actors like Alia Bhatt, Taapsee Pannu, Yami Gautam, etc., today. We are seeing more women-centric films today. We did a film in 2018, called ‘Aamhi Doghi’, starring Mukta Barve and Priya Bapat, which was very well received. It was selected for the Indian panorama as well. Recently, there was a film called ‘Mimi’, which had Kriti Sanon in the key role. Thus, there are a lot of strong women-oriented subjects which are doing well across regional cinema, and Marathi is no exception.
Gone are the days when we used to look at the commercial implications – that we need to have a mainstream hero if your story and your subject is strong, so we didn’t produce a women-oriented film.
These are edited excerpts. For the complete interview, watch below:
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