Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who has produced hit films 3 Idiots and Munna Bhai M.B.B.S, has now extended an interest-free repayable loan to emerging director Shlok Sharma.
Chopra attended the eighth annual Film Bazaar on Sunday, organised by the National Film Development Corporation.
Apart from being a part of the Film Bazar’s session titled “Master Class with Vidhu Vinod Chopra: A dialogue between Filmmakers”, he came forward and ensured help to the emerging filmmaker.
Film Bazaar has played a significant role in the growth of cinema in recent years. On seeing that, Chopra, on behalf of Vinod Chopra Films and Rajkumar Hirani, extended an interest-free repayable loan of Rs1 million (Dh59,000) to Sharma’s film Haraamkhor, produced by Guneet Monga.
The initiative ensures that while funds are made available to deserving filmmakers, they are also responsible for returning the monies.
As neither Sharma nor Monga were present at the function held on Monday, filmmaker Anurag Kashyap received it on their behalf.
“I am proud to receive it on behalf of Shlok,” said Kashyap, who was assisted by Sharma in films like Dev.D and No Smoking.
Likewise, Manish Mundra also extended an interest-free repayable loan of Rs.10 lakh to Rinku Kalsy’s For the Love of a Man and awarded prize money of Rs.10 lakh to Arun Karthick for The Strange Case of Shiva (Sivapuranam), both showcased under Film Bazaar Recommends.
The evening also saw other budding filmmakers winning big.
NFDC’s Development Award along with the prize money Rs1 million went to Mustafa Sarwar Farooki for producing No Land’s Man under the co-production market.
Raam Reddy’s Thithi won the sponsorship for Digital Intermediate process at the facilities of Prasad EFX under the Work In Progress Feature category.
Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla’s Proposition for a Revolution won under Work In Progress Documentary section for taking their rough-cut documentary to completion.
