Filmmaker helms zero budget movie

Writer-director Tejas Padia has managed to turn his ambitious script into a film, "Lo! Ho Gai Party", in zero budget, thanks to actors and technicians who agreed to work with him for free.

"I have been in the field for a while and assisted directors as well. I had a script and I took it to everyone. People sent me to corporates and other places for funding, but I saw that nothing was working out. So I decided to make it in a zero budget," Padia told IANS.

The project has veterans like Manoj Joshi and Satish Kaushik, who have shared screen space with young talented actors and did not even take a single rupee. But it wasn't easy putting everything together, he says.

"I had to schedule my shoots and everything else in accordance with the dates given to me not only by my actors, but technicians as well. A shoot which generally would have taken 21 days, took nine and a half months to complete," he said.

Bringing people on board for the project was also tough, but Padia managed to persuade them.

"They all gave me their services for free. I approached actors and technicians and explained my concept to them, and they agreed," he said.

Padia will release the movie online.

"The film will release online and I consider it to be a hit already as I have not spent anything on making it," he said.

Now that Padia is one film-old, he plans to enter the commercial field and wants to "concentrate on making big films".