An Indie tale of ‘two Indias’

Movie promotions in India, especially in Hindi cinema, follow a format. A star-studded event full of media personnel and fans flocking the malls. One glance of their favourite star, and a hookstep of rehearsed monotone. Same questions, same answers.

‘Nukkad Natak’ is different. A cast that shares every experience of making the movie online, a reel campaign that talks about their movie and an underlying tone of consciously moving away from traditional channels of promotion altogether.

At ‘Conflictorium’ in Ahmedabad, the cast and director are sitting in the audience, understanding their dreams at an open mic event.

The idea is as grounded as it can get. Six movie crew members will travel 14 cities in two months in a caravan, where they promote their dream project by indulging in a conversation about other people’s dreams.

They then ask you to go to theatres on February 27, the release date.

 Who are they? 

‘Nukkad Natak’ is written and directed by Kanpur-based Tanmya Shekhar, an IIT-Kanpur graduate. He, a friend named Medha, along with actor Molshri, funded the project with the help of 30 other people. Joining them in a candid talk with Gujarat Samachar Digital was their marketing head Architaa Chawla.

Why the ‘road less traveled’? 

“This is the first film for everyone involved. If an actor is acting for the first time and a director is directing for the first time, the industry expects big names to back the project. Since that wasn’t the case here, the team knew they had to do things differently,” said Molshri.

What do you call this marketing?

“It’s a movement,” said Chawla.

“It was never a campaign. From the very first call, they explained the film to me, and I told them clearly—this will not be a promotion, this is a movement we are creating,” she added.

The movement is envisioned to travel across India and is called ‘Badhe Chal’ or ‘I Dream’.

“The dream is that people watch the film—but through this journey, the team also wants to discover and amplify other people’s dreams. It is about going back to the roots and taking cinema directly to the ground level, to the people,” the marketing head said.

Roadblocks to the release 

Molshri has won two Best Actor awards, one in Germany and one in the UK. At one of the festivals where she won, Amitabh Bachchan’s film was also being screened, yet Molshri won the award—a moment of immense pride for the team.

Yet, as the team puts it, “Bahar ke festivals se yahan ki industry ko farak nahi padta.”

As per director Shekhar, renowned Director Imtiaz Ali saw the film and liked it so much that he connected the team to an OTT giant. However, the talks led nowhere since the cast had no familiar faces.

When all doors closed, the team began sharing their filmmaking journey on Instagram. That is where the real connection with people started. Slowly, they announced that they would be releasing the film themselves.

Marketing parallel to the film concept 

There’s a difference in the scale of filmmaking and promotions with indie projects like these and big banner movies in India. As they say, the team had to ‘innovate’ ways to market it without any big names, an exhibition of disparity between mainstream industry and ‘outsiders’.

Interestingly, the movie talks about a similar, yet more serious issue.

The story follows two friends, Molshri and Shivang, who are expelled from college and are given a chance to return on the condition that they enrol five people from a nearby basti (a slum settlement).

What begins as an obligation slowly turns into a journey of purpose, as two college students start working in a slum and discover a deeper sense of identity and meaning in their lives.

What next? 

The director believes the future depends on what this journey brings. Personally, he enjoys this grassroot approach because, as a writer-director, he has complete control.

“When I write now, I also think about how the film will reach people. That’s my learning.”

He wants to be part of that entire journey, not just the creative process.

The marketing head adds that while social media allows anyone to reach everyone, this kind of movement-based marketing needs a big heart. “Jigra chahiye.”

“Packing a six-member crew into a caravan and travelling for two months like a nukkad toli is not something big stars can do consistently,” Chawla said.

“It requires deep emotional attachment to the film and the humility to take cinema back to the streets,” she concluded.