In 2016, Mithila Makhaan became India's first film in the Maithili language to win the prestigious National Award. The movie was conceived during the tragic Kosi floods of 2008, when filmmaker Nitin Neera Chandra was working with NGOs in the flood-affected areas of Nepal and Bihar borders. It’s 2020 and the filmmaker has still not found a single investor or platform that would showcase his project.
The Quint spoke to the Indie filmmaker, who opened up about the struggles he had to go through even after the film won the award.
"The question I am always asked by investors is ‘Who is the hero?’ No one asks what the story is or who the heroine is. They only care about the hero. So I tell them I don’t have any big hero in my film, but the hero of my film is the National Award. But nobody cares about the National Award.Nitin Chandra, Filmmaker
He even approached filmmakers such as Anurag Kashyap, who is known to back small Indie films, but it didn’t workout. Nitin said his mother tongue not getting a proper representation is what motivates him to keep making films in the language.
"Anurag Kashyap had told me that he will make Mukkabaaz in Bhojpuri, but I don’t know what happened. If he would have made Mukkabaaz in Bhojpuri more people would have started watching Bhojpuri films. Prakash Jha made a mistake while making Damul. He mixed Hindi and Bhojpuri and abandoned his own mother tongue. This crisis of the language is my motivation".Nitin Chandra, filmmakker
The filmmaker has started a crowdfunding campaign on Ketto.org, helmed by actor Kunal Kapoor, to raise money for the release of Mithila Makhaan. The film is going to drop on www.bejod.in. The platform will be launched on 15 August and it will provide an opportunity to Bhojpuri and Maithili filmmakers to showcase their work.
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