Maybe you like finding new international talent like I do. The ones who are fluent in English are the upcoming talents for U.S. hits, whether indie or studio. So you want to meet Amit Masurkari, writer and director of ‘Newton’.
India’s submission to the Oscar’s foreign-language category, Newton is an indie that in India has achieved box office numbers comparable to mid-range mainstream films. Its ROI was 3x the production cost.
Drishyam Films produced the Hindi-language film, about a rookie poll officer who overcomes the odds to conduct free and fair elections in a remote tribal area, on a budget of 45 million rupees ($692,000). It opened September 22 in India and grossed $4.8 million.
I interviewed Amit Masurkari about his film which premiered at the Berlinale Forum and won the CICAE Award. The CICAE Award is given by the international association of art house exhibitors.
The film is funny and sweet and about democracy in the largest democracy in the world. Really an interesting and important film, honestly showing “the best and the worst democracy has to offer in a land of 1.3 billion citizens from multi-ethnic backgrounds”.
Amit is so smart and well-spoken, so indie — this is his second film; the first was sort of Mumblecore (he likes Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig), on a $20,000 budget called Sulemani Keeda. Netflix picked up worldwide rights after it played in Berlin. In India it had a small theatricl release and received good critical response. It also played in Mumbai Film Festival in 2014, IFFLA (Indian Film Festival in L.A.) and in the Zurich Film Festival, and in Indian Film Festivals in London and in N.Y.
Some of his other favorite films include Allison Anders’ Gas, Food Lodging which he picked up for $2 at an illegal pirate DVD shop several years ago. Of all of the movies of Satyajit Ray, The Chess Players is his favorite.
The distributor of his first film introduced him to the producer Manesh Mundra (Umrika) and in the 20 minutes they shared a cab, he pitched the project and sealed the deal. Mundra financed the Sundance Lab in India for its first two years.
His next production will be with producer, Ronnie Screwvala, one of the best in India who coproduced The Lunchbox, works with Mira Nair and M. Night Shyamalan. Screwvala used to own UTV which he sold to Disney and he has produced more than 65 Indian films. RSVP’s Ronnie Screwvala and Amit are now working on Amit’s next project.
Amit has many scripts, more ideas and he is in LA. listening to others’ ideas. He lives in Mumbai where his grandparents moved from a small village, thus making him third generation Mumbaise.
As India, the world’s largest democracy, braces itself for another general election- with 9 million polling booths, more than 800 million voters, and costing nearly $5 billion — Newton Kumar, a rookie government clerk, played by Rajkummar Rao, finds himself entrusted with a task that appears deceptively simple: conducting elections in a remote village in the jungles of central India with 76 voters who are not important to anyone, but are still expected to vote. For more than thirty years Maoist terrorists have been waging war against the state and do not want the indigenous tribals who live without any access to mainland amenities to vote. Conducting ‘free and fair’ elections in a minefield like this is no child’s play, as Newton learns over the course of this eventful day. Unfazed with the cynicism and danger all around him, this idealistic Don Quixote is determined to do his duty. But, as they say in the jungle, ‘The more things change, the worse they will get’.
A look at the women in this film is of interest because Newton’s parents want him to marry and particularly want him to marry a 16 year old who did not finish high school and while she is very sweet, he points out to his partents that she is underage and that he wants an educated woman.
In the jungle, he is aided at the polls by a local woman who is in fact the village teacher and in the end, after he is recovering back home from the injuries he has sustained at the hands of the army sent to protect him, Malko surprises him by coming to his office to visit him. He tells her he just needs to get through a few more work things before they can talk so she awkwardly sits right in front of him waiting. It’s a sweet, awkward moment between them. And then the film ends.
Anjali Patil plays a self-assured but quiet woman able to handle difficulties without complaint or drama. She is an international film and theater actress who has earned rave reviews for her work in Delhi in a Day, Chakravyuh and the Sri Lankan film With You Without You for which she received the Silver Peacock Award for Best Actress at International Film Festival of India in Goa.
After attending the Center for Performing Arts at University of Pune, in June 2007, she earned Bachelor’s Degree in Arts with a gold medal for her excellence. Later that year, Patil was chosen to pursue Masters in Theater Design at National School of Drama in New Delhi. Patil is trained in various indian martial arts/ dance forms like Kalari, Chhau and Thang-Ta. She is also trained in Indian classical dance form,Kathak but has shifted her focus to contemporary body works.
This is not an art house movie; it is made to reach a wide audience who enjoys a good story and can take home fruitful thoughts about the nature of democracy and democratic action in the face of fearful circumstances brought about by press with the government obliging to limit tourism and to increase employment for the poor as security guards and for the rich as dealers in arms. That is not spoken of directly in the film but it is, for the thoughtful viewer, implicit in the story. This area of jungle has the largest deposits of iron ore, uranium, aluminum, boxite. The politicians known this and the security forces come from low income families pumped up with nationalism. So it is a problem area.
The balance between democracy and a miliary (armed) nation is shown through the eyes of an outsider who is there for the first time with a job to do. Whatever we see is what Newton sees. The audience can take it from there.
Says Amit,
In India, politics is hugely important and widely discussed. Everyone knows India is the largest democracy in the world and changes show it is read as the election committees change and everyone is always hearing about it. There are three principles of democracy: Freedom and Justice is the first part. The Machinery of Democracy, the elections and polls is the second. And Reality is the third. This is universal all over the world. It includes inadequacies as we see in Hong Kong vis a vis China, U.S. with Trump, Germany with its neo nazis, France. Even though the principles are sublime, the majority can vote against democracy itself.
In the Q&As after the film shows, the discussion is always about poltics. It is an important conversaton. We are all in the same boat.
And the place of women?
Mostly unmarried men are sent to the remote locations where there might be danger. No one discusses this because it would show an inequality. But in this story the local woman is one of many educated women in India. Women are a part of the democratic process.
Eros is the international sales agent and in will distribute the film in India and in January throughout the India diaspora community in the U.S. However, having a U.S. distributor for the rest of the populace here in the U.S. is now being discussed as well.
