Industry veteran and former studio head honcho, Tanuj Garg, and leading photographer, talent mentor and film producer, Atul Kasbekar, have announced their partnership to set up a new-age, high content film company, Ellipsis Entertainment.
The partnership includes Shanti Sivaram Maini, Swati Iyer Chawla and Piya Sawhney, who come with extensive experience in broadcasting, advertising and talen management, and along with Kasbekar, produced the Sonam Kapoor-starrer Neerja, the most acclaimed blockbuster of 2016.
Incorporated earlier this year, Ellipsis is looking at charting an aggressive growth path. The extensive experience, market standing and goodwill of its promoters has already ensured eight Hindi movie projects in different stages of development and casting. Currently, three of them, developed ground-up, will go on floor in the financial year 2017-2018. The projects will be helmed by a mix of emerging and renowned directors. The promoters’ driving philosophy is a budget-conscious, content-based movie, which they believe is the sole determinant of box office success. The creative think-thank extends beyond in-house expertise to creative alliances with emerging and established filmmakers.
An MBA from the UK, Garg has been in senior management positions at UTV and Viacom 18 in Mumbai and London. He has marketed and distributed more than 20 Bollywood films internationally, including Jab We Met, Rang De Basanti, Singh Is King and Don. He was also CEO – Balaji Motion Pictures for 4 years (2010-2014), during which tenure he built the brand and produced/ released 11 films, including Ragini MMS, The Dirty Picture and Ek Villain.
About the new venture, says Garg, “Having derived a holistic 360-degree understanding of the business through my tenure with leading companies from their inception, it was time to leverage the experience, relationships and goodwill built over 15 years and turn entrepreneurial. I have known Atul for long, and our objective of coming together is to create pedigreed cinema, which we can be proud of and creates value for all stakeholders. There has never been a better time for content power and we are pleased that in this short time we are being seen as magnates for talent; as the go-to boys by writers, creative producers and directors. Along with our partners, Shanti, Swati and Piya, we are actively building a multi-genre movie slate and are pleased with the progress so far.”
The country’s foremost glamour photographer for 20 years, Kasbekar was one of the pioneers in the talent management space in India and played an instrumental role in discovering and mentoring a host of today’s leading talent, including Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif, John Abraham, and Saiyami Kher, due to debut in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Mirzya.
Says Kasbekar, “Ellipsis’ philosophy is to spot, nurture, mentor, and back progressive, engaging, compelling and marketable content. It is an exciting time of content flux in the industry. Marrying a good story with sensible economics in order to yield a strong ROI is the only way forward. Tightened budgets, use of best practices, rebates, brand partnerships and viably structured deals with talent, are some of the mechanisms to rationalize costs and de-risk the business. Ours is a great partnership with complementary skills.”
