What are the opportunities you see for POV and the overall filmmaking process, in the years to come?
A. I think casting. Frankly, as an industry, our casting sucks – and I don’t know why. Nowadays, if you go to any international festival, the moment an Indian ad comes on, you can hear people whispering ‘Indian ad, Indian ad.’ The moment the Ericsson model appears, everyone knows it’s an Indian ad. This is because we have a pool of just 10 good models to choose from. Which is sad considering we have a tradition of theatre, street theatre, folk arts You never see models being repeated in US ads or British ads. So there is a genuine dearth of character actors in Indian advertising.
