Mahima Kaul is a journalist from Delhi who is working as Partnerships Director at VV. She was on hand at the August CVU Camp to conduct interviews and film the CV Camp

Malegaon is a small town where a local film industry has grown, perhaps one of the most successful examples of “grassroots” cinema anywhere in the world. The two local guys who started it —one of whom is a shopkeeper by day -- were at VV’s Community Video Camp in August, giving a speech and training about their work for the first time in their lives.

Under the able direction of Naseer and starring Akram, spoofs of the greatest Indian movies have been made. With Malegoan’s Superman, they’ve now branched into Hollywood! Their films are incredibly popular in their small town and made on a shoestring budget of perhaps $500 to make a feature film. What is amazing is Naseer’s sheer enthusiasm at going further each time, tackling what may seem to ordinary people as an undoable movie. But they are about to make the big time: Faiza Khan, a young Indian documentary filmmaker, has just made a fabulous documentary about them that is winning all kinds of awards. In her documentary, “Superman of Malegaon”, we see the star strapped onto a bullock cart and made to ‘fly’ into a rickshaw to drag out the bad guy, with the camera strapped onto trucks to give the feeling of fast action. Superman wears an oversized pair of blue pajamas, to accentuate his skinny legs, with the drawstring of the pajamas hanging out. The films are full of humour and poke fun at themselves for attempting to replicate major Bollywood and Hollywood films in the most ludicrous of settings. You can read great articles about them here:
Nasir Sheikh in Mumbai Mirror.

At the Camp, Naseer and Akram showed many of their small budget Bollywood films. The CVUs, who are all too familiar with the lack of resources and formal technical training, watched in fascination how Naseer managed to use little resources and no parent NGO to make and fund a full length feature film. His sheer inventiveness astounded his audience who clapped and laughed in equal measure.

The next morning Naseer and Akram were hauled up in front of an extremely eager audience for an interview session. Adulation came pouring out because everyone recognized that this motley crew in Malegaon had made cinema. Producers felt a real commonality with them, because our Producers have been dying to make comedy for a long time. Someone asked Naseer if they were scared that if they got more funds, their little cinematic universe would die. No, they said, because they had seen HD movies and were excited to use more expensive cameras — at the moment, they shoot on extremely low cost “one chip” cameras. I wondered if that question was a very ‘upper caste’ reaction – not allowing poor people the luxury of ambition – something VV fights against on a daily basis.

An amazing point came out during the discussion – the role of women. It had been revealed to the CVUs that female leads in their movies are always played by women from outside their village. Our ever-attuned feminist Producers asked why didn’t they recruit a local woman for the role? Their reluctance to answer the question spoke volumes. They finally explained that they lived in a conservative Muslim town and that it was not ‘done’. Even when pushed further and asked if they would consider giving the women of their family a role, they did not budge. During this discussion it was revealed that women do not even come to the screenings in Malegaon but instead watch the movies on DVD/VCD in the comfort of their homes. They were not here to bring about social change, they said, but simply to entertain. This is one difference between what we are doing and they are doing.

It must be said that the feisty CVU women took great offence to these answers. If they are known personalities in their town, doesn’t the onus of bringing about social change fall on them? Perhaps from the amazement at filming style, there was some judgment creeping in from people about their roles as simply filmmakers, and not community leaders.

Naseer and Akram explained that their movies did carry and social message and showed the audience a bunch of funny short movies they had produced for the government. A scene of Sholay that revolved around the health centre; where Thaukar had lost his arms not to Gabbar but to polio… but these were a few projects. Their forte was humour. For instance, in the Superman spoof, the badguy keeps repeating, “I love filth! I want this town to be even more filthy!”, which is a clear reference to one of the true social ills of the town — pollution.

Ultimately, Naseer and Akram were a hit because they had done it themselves, and with style! And perhaps for them coming to the CV Camp made them realize that the scope of their work could be larger than just entertainment. Either way, it was enlightening, it was heart warming and it showed you what a little camera can do!