Second coming

Kapur is in India for the long haul, and has a lot on his mind. Until we met, Kapur was, for this writer (an indiscriminate film lover, capable of appreciating Sanjay Dutt, Kamal Haasan, Jack Black and Sean Penn with equal enthusiasm) India’s only truly crossover director—going by the most popular usage of the word ‘crossover’.

His career graph explains it: A disastrous attempt at stardom in forgettable romantic films under the banner of his maternal uncle, Dev Anand’s Navketan Films (among them was Ishq Ishq Ishq, 1974, arguably the worst film Anand produced); a foray into television, where he got to prove his acting talent with serials such as Udaan (1990) during Doordarshan’s heyday; a model for commercials (remember Digjam Suitings?); his famous debut as a director with Masoom (1983) and then Mr India (1987), a box office sensation; Bandit Queen (1994), which earned him recognition from the world; and then his last three feature films—Elizabeth (1998), Four Feathers (2002) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) with Talking Pictures, a London-based production house that makes Hollywood films.

It is a “crossover” story in every sense. Each of these phases are stories of new beginnings, new experiments.

But it is safe to say that for Kapur, film-making now is only a crucial, very special part of his creative universe. He is more a creative entrepreneur.

Kapur is in the process of roping in strategic investors for a $1 billion (about Rs4,300 crore) private fund for creative work in digital technology in South Asia. He says the Singapore government (for gaming and animation) and China’s Hina Group, an investment banking and private equity group, are already on board and he is in talks with some Indian companies as well. “This fund will not look at film-making, because I believe that the next big splurge is not in Bollywood or Hollywood; it’s in the world of the Web—to tell stories that are immediate, that can hook you in your cellphone. This fund will aggregate together content creators and technology from Asia. I want to be in creative control from the time content is made to the gatekeeping stage and then distribution. Professionals will only manage it.”

Kapur already has two characters in mind for a story that will unfold in your cellphone if the fund is successfully raised, and channelled: “an ordinary girl and her travails through life, and perhaps an animal.” After being the creative head of Virgin Comics, the company Kapur formed with Deepak Chopra, a close friend, this is the film-maker’s second big jab at mass media. Among other ideas (“I’m working on five more things that you have no clue about, and I can’t tell you”) that he is flirting with is a Twenty20 kabaddi tournament, only for Indian television. His reasons for thinking up the last are obvious, but the vision to execute it and, to an extent, generate the funds for it, is still fuzzy.