I came to know about him during the pre-release promotion of Kaante in 2002. Till then I remained oblivious to his existence and his contribution to Indian Cinema. On researching, I found out that he started his career as Chief Assistant Director in 1989. Then on he has been Director of Photography (2nd Unit), Post-Production In-charge, Writer and Director before finally becoming a Producer.
Today he has his own production house. He along with Sanjay Dutt started White Feather Films (WFF), which has many blockbusters to its credit. Kaante, Zinda, Dus Kahaniyaan and Shootout at Lokandwala were some of the most talked about films he had churned out as a Writer and Director with the only exception of Shootout at Lokandwala, where he’s a Producer.
The reason this article is sounding like an ode to Sanjay is because of his new venture launched this year. White Feather Art-House (WFAHF) Films is an initiative by WFF to promote content-rich cinema. WFAHF will be backing projects that have substance in it but are doomed due to lack of finance and other resources. Their very first offering, The Great Indian Butterfly, has already created quite a buzz in India as well as abroad. The film has even received invitations from couple of prestigious International Film Festivals.
Now, in my opinion it is unlikely of a person to be immersed in Wealth and still indulge in Charity. On one hand, WFF continues to make typical Bollywood “masala” films that guarantee to get cash registers ringing. It seems like they are just another production house interested only in minting money in the name of Entertainment. However, on their other hand, the WFAHF initiative tells us that here are some people, who are in the industry for the love of their professions and not for anything else.
To me Sanjay Gupta seems like a “bollywood-chap Robin-hood”. He robs the audience addicted to typical “bollywood masala films” and makes enough money, only to give it away as charity to the genuinely talented filmmakers, who have something worthwhile to offer to the discerning movie audience.
