Icm partners comes on board to represent rohena gera’s sir ahead of the awards season race

Jyothi Venkatesh

Ahead of the 2021 awards season, ICM Partners, the renowned Hollywood film agency has come on board to represent Rohena Gera’s award-winning feature ‘Is Love Enough? Sir’ in the USA, UK and Australia, among other territories.An official Indo-French co-production, Sir premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival (Competition section, Critics Week), where it also won the coveted Gan foundation award for ambitious original features.

Since then, it has travelled to almost 45 international festivals where it has won nearly 20 awards across categories including Best Film, Audience Choice awards and Best Actor awards. Sir has also been successfully distributed theatrically in over countries, including France, where it has the honour of being in the Top 5 Indian films ever, in terms of number of cinema tickets sold (Salaam Bombay, The Lunchbox are also in the top 5).

While the fate of its Indian theatrical was stuck in the COVID balance since March 2020, it's now gearing up for its release in cinemas in India this Friday, November 13, 2020. The festive season hopes to bring people back to the theatres after a six month hiatus, with the country crossing the peak of the pandemic in September.

The ICM announcement is sure to put this film on the radar of the Film Federation of India as one of the frontrunners in the selection race for who gets to represent India in the Best Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards 2021. The film stars Tillotama Shome (Monsoon Wedding, Qissa) and Vivek Gomber (Court, A Suitable Boy) in the lead roles.

The Academy has consistently awarded films on politically relevant themes, with strong performances and social commentary. Last year it went a step further and awarded the best film award to Parasite, the South Korean class-thriller, shattering 92 years of Oscar history. But it remains to be seen whether the jury’s preferences would shift in a year marred by the coronavirus pandemic, and whether bad-news fatigue would lead the 6,500 Academy voters to respond to politically relevant albeit uplifting fare in this strange year.

Sir is a tender love story exploring a contemporary urban-rural class divide, with the domestic help Ratna as the dynamic protagonist, hanging on to her dream against all odds. Writer-Director Rohena Gera adds, “We have a very intimate yet hierarchical relationship with the people who work in our homes. I wanted to explore that without being preachy, and a love story allowed me to do that.

To push boundaries, but through love and desire not by telling people what to think.” Given the recent push to diversify the Academy’s ranks, which has led to the voters being ever so slightly younger, female, and international – the makers are upbeat about ticking all the right boxes.

And with ICM Partners coming on board, with an unparalleled legacy in representing Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning actors in motion pictures, television and on stage since 1975, the film’s chances look especially buoyant in the lobbying phase that starts in Los Angeles post selection. Los Angeles-based Jessica Lacy, partner and head of independent and international film at ICM Partners, is known for championing the representation of women directors and actors at the global stage.

In the last year itself, she has assembled films and brokered deals for top-billed female filmmakers such as Eleanor Coppola, Jennifer Fox, Karyn Kusama, Sally Potter, Katie Holmes, Clea Duvall, and Miranda Bailey, among others. Sir stands out as one of the few Indian films, written and directed by one of the few Indian women filmmakers, that has charmed the top-billed agency’s executivesThe film, slated for India theatrical release will be distributed by the Mumbai-based boutique film studio Platoon One Films, helmed by Shiladitya Bora who was also associated with earlier Indian Oscar selections such as Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court (2016) and Amit Masurkar’s Newton (2017).

Shiladitya Bora, Founder, Platoon One Films says, “We have submitted the film for consideration as India’s Official Entry to the Academy Awards. We believe in the potential of the film as the subject matter is contemporary and relevant, and takes on a social issue (like the Oscar winning film The Help, 2011) through a positive story (like Life is Beautiful, 1997, Best International Film), Green Book (Best Picture, Screenplay, Supporting Actor, 2018). It’s a very special film for us.

It is that rare film like The Lunchbox, Namesake etc that will strike a chord with both critics and audience alike. Production: (India-France) An Inkpot Films, Cine Sud production. (International sales: MK2 Films, Paris.) Producers: Brice Poisson, Rohena Gera. Executive producer: Rakesh Mehra. Co-producers: Thierry Lenouvel.

Distribution (India): Platoon One Films

Crew:

Director, Writer: Rohena Gera.

Camera (Color): Dominique Colin.

Editor: Jacques Comets.

Music: Pierre Avia.

Starring: Tillotama Shome Viviek Gomber, Divya Seth Shah, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Bhagyashree Pandit, Anupriya Goenka, Bachan Pachera.

Follow updates of the film on our social media handles:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RohenaGera

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Sirthefilm/

Facebook:

Ratna (Tillotama Shome) works as a domestic live-in help with Ashwin(Vivek Gomber), a man from a wealthy family. Although Ashwin seems to have it all, Ratna can sense that he has given up on his dreams and is somewhat lost… On the other hand, Ratna who seems to have nothing, is full of hope and works determinedly towards her dream. As these two worlds collide and the two individuals connect, the barriers between them seem only more insurmountable.

Educated at Stanford University (B.A.) in California, and Sarah Lawrence College (M.F.A.) in New York, Rohena has worked in film and television for over 20 years. Starting her career at Paramount Pictures Literary Affairs office in New York in 1996, Rohena has since worked in a range of roles from Assistant Director to screenwriter to independent producer/director.

Rohena’s most recent project What’s love got to do with it? a micro-budget feature documentary premiered at the Mumbai Film Festival in 2013.She independently produced and directed a non-profit campaign called Stop the Hatred to fight hate propaganda and communalism.

This featured 16 national icons including Amitabh Bachchan, Zakir Husain, Aamir Khan, Ashutosh Gowariker, Sachin Tendulkar and various others. This was screened in 240 cinemas nationwide and across all national television channels that are members of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation. She has been commissioned to write for mainstream Hindi cinema and television as well as Independent cinema.

In her tenure as Communications director for Breakthrough (an international non-profit headquartered in New York) she released one of their music albums promoting pluralism through Sony Music and executive produced a music video featuring Rahul Bose and Anupam Kher. The UN Foundation invited her to serve as an advisor for their wildlife conservation campaign in India.

Having grown up in Pune, but having lived in California, New York, Paris, and Mumbai she is both an insider and an outsider to Mumbai. Sir, Rohena’s current feature film project was selected by Critics week at Cannes for the competition section. It also received the support of the World Cinema Fund (Cinémas du monde) of the CNC (National Centre for Cinema) in France for post-production.