Everything you want to know about kannada movie LUCIA

When I wore a Lucia T-shirt and walked down the aisles of Mantri mall, I was pretty impressed to see that lot of people giving a sneak peak at my tees as if they know about Lucia. Their gestures and smiles told me that you’ve done a pretty good job by supporting project Lucia. However, when I wore the same tees to my workplace, I was asked by many of my colleagues, both Kannadigas and non kannadigas What’s LUCIA, What does it mean? And so many other questions. And I thought; why not post it on my blog? Read on!

LUCIA poster

LUCIA needs no introduction, but if you don’t know, it’s the first public funded (YES!) movie, a first of its kind experiment in the history in the Indian Cinema. Apparently, there are a lot of regional directors who make good cinema, but they seldom push it to the audience. So exceptional film makers like Girish kasaravalli don’t come to limelight until a national award is conferred on them. By the time we get to know about it, we’d have missed watching it. Thus a good movie misses reaching the audience. Pawan, the brain behind Project Lucia, very well knew about this atrocity. He knew that a good director should also be good at marketing, so that it reaches the right set of audience.

Why he went public: Even after 6 months of completing the script for Lucia, he couldn’t find a producer who was interested to listen to the gist of what Lucia is. They made fun of him. They mocked his idea and approach. Many producers told him that they’d give a chance to him to direct for a remake script.  Pawan was hell bent. LUCIA or NOTHING. His gut feeling was that Lucia can become a cult film for kannada industry. That’s when he decided to come to “US”, the real critics of the movie. For detailed discussion in his own words Click here

Pawan Kumar - brain behind LUCIA

How he went about it: He got offers to make it in other languages. But Pawan was very determined. It’s LUCIA in Kannada or nothing. But Lucia was only in script. There was a problem. The mother of all problems. Who will fund it? The project had to be shelved. But some of his admirers, supporters and followers gave him the idea of making Lucia with public funds.Yes. Collecting funds from the audience, by making “them” the producers of the movie. Making a movie with Public funds..??? Oh yeah..?? Really..?? 

But the option did not seem impossible. He started with no hopes at all. But he kept himself a 100 day deadline to reach the 50 lakh target. After working out all the pros and cons he decided to take the suggestions of the audience and opt for Crowd funding model for making the Film Lucia. That’s when the revolution started. Within a few days of announcing how he would go about it, he started getting mails that people were ready to invest in his venture. Within 12 hours more than a lakh had arrived in his account, all from people he doesn’t even know. How awesome is that. How he raised funds in detail – Click here

Another LUCIA movie poster

The making: Now, there were enough mails in his inbox to boost his confidence that this could be a reality. Now all he wanted was actors and technicians with flair; A passion, a fervor to deliver good things. To reach out to the right talent, he launched a 72 hour challenge, which was very simple. He asked the role seekers to make 4-5 min long Promo video about Project Lucia. They were free to be as creative as they want to be, use any medium to shoot, it could be live action or animation, but please use copyright free music and visuals only. And you have 72 hours to make this promo.

Ninasam Sathish offered to join. Auditions for actors also happened. Siddhartha Nuni took the director of photography on his shoulders, Poorna Chandra Tejaswi, a budding musician decided to create lovely music. Shashidhar Adapa offered to create sets which are as creative as himself and with so many others joining and taking the ownership, LUCIA team finally created the magic.

Now, next and the later:

Now: LUCIA has won the YCE (Young Creative Entrepreneur) award by the British Council. Lucia was selected for the London Indian film festival, won the award in the Audience choice category for the best film. All the international dailies including The Guardian and all Indian dailies have appreciated Project-Lucia for its accomplishments. 

Next: Theatre rent, television promotions, ads and other forms of marketing for the film needs an additional budget of 1.8 crores approx. So Project LUCIA has come up with a plan where you the audience can be the distributor. Yes! You can pre order it to watch online. Pre-order is an opportunity for you to play the role of a DISTRIBUTOR at a very low price/low risk. 

Later: With a Pre-order, not only are you getting a copy of the film, but you also get an opportunity to make money of the film. And we want you to do that. The more the money you make, that many more audience we get to watch our film. And that is what we want – more audience. For more details on “YOU” as a distributor click here

 There is already a buzz in the sandalwood that LUCIA has come very good and it’ll thump the box office. People are humming “Tinbeda kammi” merrily and gleefully. People who’ve watched it at the London Indian Film festival have given the audience back in India, a green signal. Momtaz of asiana tv says

“Lucia is a real ‘milestone’ in South Indian cinema, and a film everyone should watch”.

Click here for complete review

Another audience Roopa Upadhya says

“Pawan Kumar lives up to his words, he has made a film that is young, intelligent, complex but still lot of fun”

Click here for complete review

For a man with Penny in his pocket and dreams worth million, this is much more than just achievement. His efforts are weirdly impressive. They say “Be the change you want to see in the world” and Project LUCIA and Pawan Kumar is an archetype that proves it. He deserves a standing ovation for this venture. I wish him all the very very best.

Watch LUCIA not to support him, but to appreciate what he is able to create out of nothing; to appreciate his endurance in driving this transformation; his taste for original scripts and his zeal for movies.   And of course for good movie watching experience, which has become a rarity in Kannada these days.