Brand Bollywood

Once upon a time, fresh out of the University of NSW with my Master's in Films & Theatre and a thesis on Popular Indian cinema, I was finding it hard to be recognized as an Australian film professional beyond my cultural identity of an India migrant.
Multiculturalism was still new and evolving in Australia, and I seemed to 'confuse' them. Australia and the Australian film industry had no idea how to professionally deal with this 'other' person.. I was not Aussie enough for Australia yet and of course I was not Indian enough for India any more.
As a struggling actor and director, I was acting as the usual Indian spice shop owner being attacked in Australia's Most Wanted, the Indian doctor in a corporate video. Directing/writing short films for Art Gallery of NSW and SBS radio gigs etc. This was still on the fringes, would not sustain me while ticking NESB in various applications was welcoming me I still had to stand in a queue for limited funding, limited opportunities, and limited earnings
Easy option was to accept the offers from Indian icons and go back to where I came from. Where is the fun in that! The instinct for survival led to an outside the box approach, a strong desire to not wait for opportunities but create them in a growing multicultural and diverse screen sector where I had so much to contribute. To succeed not in spite of my diversity but because of it.
I then hungrily started looking for ways to combine the Australian in me, the Indian in me, the film professional in me, and the Bollywood crazy fan in me. At the same time, Indian film icon Feroz Khan came looking for locations to film in Australia. A bizarre Bollywood style meeting with him, resulted in me being offered a senior production role. Producing! But I trained for five years as a director and actor?!
I knew I would always struggle as a creative migrant and a film professional in Australia. My supervisor Ross Harley at UNSW provided some wise words of guidance. The choice was - “Should I struggle waiting tables at a cafe or running my own production company?”
The decision was clear and a very profitable one, professionally, commercially, and financially.
I jumped into the Bollywood world and started knocking on every door to create this Bollywood world for me and introduce this colourful, profitable, new ‘market’ to my Australian film colleagues. Their reception was very warm and welcoming. Thus, I became a part of the birth and growth of the modern film links between Australia and India soon becoming a niche industry.
Over the next years (1998 to 2012), I witnessed first-hand the growing international interest in Bollywood, particularly in Australia. I experienced some of the most beautiful, bizarre, heartwarming, heart-wrenching, inspirational, depressing, and frustrating moments of my life.
I have a story to tell. But, It is not my story.
It is the story of how moving images became a religion in India.
It is a story of how the biggest film industry got the name of Bollywood.
It is a story of how when the Indian economy liberalised, they pushed Bollywood into a perfect marriage with the West
It is a story of a torrid love affair between Bollywood and the World.
Every part of me has something to contribute to this story.
As a person of Indian origin, I have grown up watching many Bollywood films shot all over the world and now in Australia. It has been the most bizarre experience to see it all materialise from scratch as Australia, my adopted country, becomes an important part of the world's biggest film industry.
As a filmmaker, and someone who is experiencing this amazing journey, I am very keen to share it through the medium I am most comfortable with - film.
As an Australian, I have always been an ardent supporter of diversity, before it was a buzzword, in front of and behind the camera. It has been interesting to see Australian film professionals embrace diversity and heartwarming to witness them overcome their own prejudices and stereotyping.
Enriched with this first-hand experience, access to Bollywood, plus a team who share this passion with me, I was encouraged by my colleague Lisa Duff way back in 2003 to think about a documentary. The idea was born then. Over the next 20 years the story brewed on its own looking for the right angle, the right spice, the right plot points.
Finally in late 2018 with private investor interest in my story, the journey to narrate the journey on screen began. The crucial theatrical distribution and the all important provisional certificate from Screen Australia triggered the filming of Bollywood Downunder. As COVID-19 ended our sculpting shifted gear with Karin Steininger who then helped me make sense of it all and edited the film by co-writing it with me.
What you see in Brand Bollywood is my homage to the world's most prolific, followed, colourful, enchanting, ridiculed, engaging, and celebratory film industry Bollywood. The film is a look at the confused, well meaning, chaotic, unpredictable Australian reaction to the equally chaotic and confused Bollywood, as it invaded iconic Australian locations.
My homage is in form and in content.
Hope you like it, learn from it, celebrate with it, and get coloured for life with the colours of Bollywood. Join me on a journey as we take this film to you and you and you around the world.
See you at the theatre soon.
Anupam Sharma