Goa:24/11/24: “My father was a freedom fighter and following his request to make the Vande Mataram song more appealing to the 90’s generation, I created the popular album ‘Vande Mataram’ by A.R. Rahman,” said noted film director and screenwriter Bharat Bala. He was speaking in a Panel discussion on ‘Culture as Context for Cinematic Storytelling’ at the 55th IFFI in Goa. Reputed writers, Dr. Sachchidanand Joshi and Amish Tripathi were the other speakers in the panel. Shri Bala said that advertising is all about generating fervour and excitement for a product. Similarly, he wanted to make ‘Vande Mataram’ sound cool for the new generation and ‘Vande Mataram’ album song was a result of this thought.
Shri Bala informed that he is working on a new project called Virtual Bharat which chronicles India through 1000 stories coming from different parts of the country. “Crowdfunding of films can give the general public, the power to choose the stories they want to watch as opposed to the current system where producer or director decides which story to choose for making the film.” Shri Bala concluded.
Amish Tripathi popular author of ‘The Shiva Trilogy’ and ’Ram Chandra Series’ said that, for many decades now, films have been portraying the realities of society. He added that when a storyteller is alive to his cultural surroundings, more authentic stories will come out.