Vikramaditya Motwane tells Mid-day his production company Andolan was named after a film produced by his grandfather starring Kishore Kumar.
(Left) The poster of the film Andolan produced by (right) Vikramaditya Motwane's grandfather (Source: Imdb)
If you go through any archival footage of public rallies of politicians from the ’50s, or pre-Independence vintage, the most common brand name you’ll notice is Chicago Radio, that’s attached to the microphone. That company was started by filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane's great grandfather.
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Talking to Mid-day as part of the Sit With Hitlist series, Motwane delved deep into his family tree and gave us all the history. "The patriarch in my family, in that kind of sense, was my great great grandfather, who set up the company. He had two sons. I am from one part of the family… He built Chicago Radio. I don’t know why it was called Chicago Radio. I think there was a collaboration with American technology and therefore (it was called) Chicago Radio. So, I am not quite sure exactly why," Motwane explains.
"I am the family archivist in a sense, so I am the one who everybody dumps their photos on, because yeh filmmaker hai, so he clearly has an interest in photographs. But if I ask a question today - because it is so far removed from the actual source of the story - if I ask why Chicago Radio, I get three different answers. Actually, what the right answer is, nobody knows," he adds.
Also read: Sit With Hitlist: Vikramaditya Motwane's evolution from Udaan to Jubilee
While asking questions to his family members didn't help much, Motwane found some facts from journalists. "My family didn’t tell me this, I learned this from a journalist outside, who came and met me and said, ‘Did you know your grandfather was very into documentary films, and the Chicago Radio, your family, used to have rights to All India Congress Committee Sessions. And I am like, ‘Where is this footage?’ I have no idea about this, no one tells me this stuff. My dad dumps a box of books on me, saying, ‘These are my father’s books’, and I am like, ‘Great! My grandfather’s books’, and a lot of them are about how to learn filmmaking. So, there is a lot of this stuff. This is after I have become a filmmaker. And I am like, I have formed my own path," he says.
He also discovered that filmmaking was, in fact, in his genes. "I learned that my grandfather produced a film called Andolan in 1949 with a young Kishore Kumar in the lead. It was a film about the freedom struggle. It didn't do well at all, which is why nobody in the family talks about it. Because I think the family lost money and so it became one of those ek film produce kar di..."
Motwane says that's how his production house got its name - Andolan. The film is also still available for viewing. "There is a print in NFAI. I think it is on YouTube. I have a DVD lying somewhere. So my company is called Andolan because it is, in a sense, a tribute to one film my family made all the way back then. So yeah, it is funny, because once you end up doing something, then you think, haan it's in the genes.
Watch the full interview here.
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