MUMBAI: Come 22 February, fans of horror movies and multi-tasking musician cum VJ Luke Kenny, can enjoy watching him turn into a zombie.
Apart from the fact that ‘Rise of the Zombie’ is the first Hindi zombie origin film, the film more importantly marks the first ever attempt to offer Gen Y entertainment beyond Bollywood.
The producers, Kenny Media and BSI Entertainment, are betting on the untapped youth not swayed by existing ‘Bollypop’ culture, its surrounding hype and heavily marketed paraphernalia. Parallel to this effort is a serious attempt to promote the songs and talent for upcoming and unknown musicians.
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The only connection that Zombie (cast includes Luke Kenney, Kirti Kulhari, Ashwin Mushran, Benjamin Gilani) has with mainstream Hindi films is that the dialogues and songs are in Hindi. Any resemblance to Bollywood ends there. The promos are gritty with blood splattered over the screen and there are no visible attempts to soften the visual and audio blows. The music is dark, angry and foreboding.
For Kenny, who has produced, co-directed (with Devaki Singh) and acted in the film, Rise of the Zombie is the fruition of independent film and music movement that is about to take over Gen Y. Behind the scenes too, the creative inputs, especially the hard hitting music (11 tracks) are all contributed by independent artists.
“I believe Zombie is far from a one-off project that showcases the talents and thoughts of indie artists, it personifies the shape of things to come. We talk about the need to promote independent talent in the country but that never really happens. Talent still struggles. Take reality show winners, they struggle to get a break in Bollywood. The ones that ‘make it’ are too busy making money to exploit their creativity.”
With giving the country’s young music talent a break and underlying philosophy behind their ventures, Kenny and his team have roped in new and relatively unknown talent for music. All of the 11 tracks in the film’s music have been composed and performed by unheard names along with Kenny who sings in two tracks.
For Kenny, the film is sending multiple messages to anyone who’s interested. To let indie musicians and creative minds know there is a scope for vision and creativity. For audiences at home and abroad; that there are films beyond ‘on your face’ Bollywood films.
He said that investors in the film (“the budget was lower than that of an average Bollywood dance number”) were fortunately movie buffs who were also tired of the formulaic Bollywood films.
“The film was shot on a Canon 5D and will be released in theatres pan India. We will also be exploiting the digital space heavily. There is a whole lot segment of youth who are not bred on Bollywood movies and music and whose mindset is edgy. There is a world where audiences cannot relate to Bollywood.”
