"For Us , The Content Is The Most Important In A Film And The Rest Comes Later"- Abhayanand Singh And Piiyush Singh

Jyothi Venkatesh

Abhayanand Singh and Piiyush Singh are the founders of Golden Ratio Films, which is a part of Vistas Media Capital, a Singapore based, fully integrated, content, media and entertainment investment holding company. GRF which has plans to diversify into the Tamil cinema industry with 5 Tamil films, has a slate of films which are ready to release in the coming months.

Excerpts from a conversation with the dynamic duo:

Piiyush Singh, what was your inspiration to step into Entertainment industry?

I am from Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh) and studied in Lucknow. I started my job in Sahara Channel and got into TV serials. My first serial was “Chainpur Ki Dastan”, after that I did many TV serials and my journey started. After sometime I lost my interest and quit my job from a running show of Sahara. My co-founder Abhayanand Singh is my brother-in-law and we both are connected since a long time. We had the same interest, so we established our company Golden Ratio Films.

How was the journey of your film “The extraordinary journey of Fakir”?

GRF released “The extraordinary journey of Fakir” in six countries. It was an Indo-west Belgium co-produced film with M ventures. It has made a decent return. Fakir was first released in Russia on 14th June 2018 and was released in India on 21st June 2019.

Is Golden Ratio Films also interested to produce digital films and web series?

Two years back GRF had produced a Hindi web-series “Cyber Squad” with Alt Balaji. We also have many web-series under production, like Savukku (Tamil) which is about the struggle of a common man, The Artist (Hindi) and we are also planning to convert a feature film “Yash” into a web series which is about a policeman who is trying to cleanse the system by being a part and parcel of the system.

What do you think about new face of Bollywood films?

The kind of Bollywood films nowadays releasing is attracting the audience globally. China is the biggest box office platform for Indian Cinema.

What is VMC?

GRF is a part of Vistas Media Capital, a Singapore based, fully integrated, content, media and entertainment investment holding company. VMC’s other successful initiatives includes the recently held CCFA and CCSFA (Critics Choice Film Awards and Critics Choice Short Film awards), the annually held Singapore South Asian International Film Festival (Sg.SAIFF) which is in its 3rd year and Diquery Digital LLP, a digital media and marketing company for top brands across different verticals.

Last year, VMC has started the Critics’ Choice Awards which has been a successful event, what was the idea behind it?

VMC started CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS last year which was a really successful venture. It’s a no non-sense kind of award show in which they only focus on genuine awards without any kind of entertaining performances. We plan definitely to continue this.

Tell us about SAIFF?

SAIFF is an International film festival which was started in 2016 and has been going on for the last three years in Singapore. It is for all the countries and mostly people from South Asia are participating in this. As Singapore is a neutral country, its our base for the festivals and award functions because they can get all the countries to participate. The jury selects 12 film-makers from this festival. GRF has funded four films through crowd funding which has been selected in this film festival. We found Leena Mani Mekalai and Shailendra Vyas (directing “Sehar” with GRF) from this festival only.

Why do the small budget or non-studio films don’t get theatres? What do you think about it?

Non-studio films take time to release Internationally. They start their release with small number of theatres and later on after getting publicity and good audience response, they start getting more theatres and countries to release the film.

What are the upcoming film projects of GRF?

GRF have many projects in pipeline like the Manoj Bajpayee starrer “Bhosle” which is all set to release in few months, the Abhay Deol & Pankaj Kapoor starrer “JL50”, the Pankaj Kapoor starrer “Sehar” directing by Shailendra Vyas, “The Curry-cure” a love story between a Chinese boy and South Indian girl based on food, a historical war epic, a sports crime drama and a real-life covert operation thriller to be directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia.

What are the other future plans?

GRF has launched a block chain based crowd funding equity for the Indians living outside India who want to make films. This is our initiative to help people who are keen and passionate for film-making but lack funds. Our first Hindi crowd funded feature film of GRF production was “Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai” starring Manav Kaul.

Looks like films made by GRF, are very much focussed on South Indian stories. Piiyush Singh, why do you think you are more focussed on that genre?

The upcoming Marathi film “Abhay” has a 3 crore budget and the shoot will start this year after Ganpati and it will be a 28 days schedule. GRF wants to make content-based films & collectively take every region and genre of India. GRF is also producing Marathi film “Abhay – Time is Money” directed by Manish Khandelwal. I have worked with Manish Khandelwal in Sahara’s Prime Time Thriller show. Since then we are connected.

What was the first project of GRF?

The first project of GRF was a short film “Tandav” starring Manoj Bajpaye. He has been awarded as the best actor in Filmfare awards for “Tandav”. After that we made yet another short film “Kriti” starring Radhika Apte, Neha Sharma & Manoj Bajpayee, which has also won many awards. After that we started the Hindi feature film “Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai”.

How was your experience with Nakkash?

The journey of film “Nakkash” has been very satisfactory and enjoyable.

What do you think about the censorship of digital content?

Censor is good for certification but they cannot decide what the audience wants to see and what not to. And practically, its not possible to censor everything at a digital level.

Abhayanand Singh, being from stock market business, how did you get interested in this Entertainment Industry?

I am from Bihar and later on settled in Singapore. Since childhood I was passionate towards Indian Cinema as my father owned a video hall in Bihar and I spent my life all around the films. According to me dynamics of the film industry business has changed through digitization.

According to you, what are the benefits of digitization?

We realized that many films are not able to reach its audience worldwide because of their limited theatre release. So, we also started OTT and VoD Platform “Muvizz.com”. Seeing the digitization of cinema, our focus shifted and we started working on content and story-based films.

Abhayanad Singh, don’t you think that entertainment business is very risky? Do you have any plan B?

Stock market & finance are much more insecure business than film making. Any start-up doesn’t become a unicorn instantly. It has same amount of risk like any other business. I always believe in plan B & it is with any business.

What is your priority in film-making? the story or the star-cast?

Piiyush Singh:

Our first priority in any film is the story rather than the star cast. Every film is having its own budget, distribution and fate and we are also open for stories outside our team.

Abhayanand Singh :

As a viewer, I like all kinds and genres of films based on my mood. As a producer, I am of the opinion that the genre is secondary & the story is most important. For us, it’s always a good story & a good director which is important but sometimes star-cast is also as important as per the demand of the film. One film is made by the equal contribution of all the team members. For me in a film, content is most important, after that comes director and lastly the cast of the film.

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