New Delhi:
Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga recently sat down for an interview with NDTV and spoke about her working relationship with Karan Johar and Dharma Productions. ICYDK, Guneet and KJo have reunited for projects like Lunchbox, Kill and Gyaarah Gyaarah. She said, “I only have one word for Karan and Dharma, and that’s empowerment. He’s very empowering and the faith he’s shown in me. It all started when I approached him during a dinner at Cannes in 2013. I was there with The Lunchbox, and he was there with Bombay Talkies. It was the 100th year of Indian cinema, and I also produced Murabba.”
At dinner, I went to his table and said, ‘Hi Karan, this is Guneet. I’m a producer and I work with Anurag Kashyap. I’ve made a film that’s getting a lot of attention here, but we don’t have distribution in India. Do you think you could distribute the film?’ He said, ‘Okay, why don’t you come and show me the film?’ I asked for his phone number and said, ‘Are you sure this isn’t your secretary’s number?’ He assured me, ‘No, this is my number. Please call me when you’re back in India.’
“The next day, I texted him, we were at the Cannes awards ceremony and I said I would love to do a screening for him. We did that and after the screening he came out with tears in his eyes and said, ‘I loved it.’ That moment changed the trajectory of the film in India. The reason The Lunchbox became so popular in India is because of the role that Dharma played in it. He championed it. Karan is one of the best marketing minds I have ever seen — he is a genius. I just watched him and learned from him. He turned all the negative narratives around about The Lunchbox. I had studios saying to me, ‘There are no songs, you have cast older actors, no one will watch it, there is too much English in the film, how do you promote it?’ But Karan and Dharma turned all those narratives around. I learned a lot from them,” he added.
Guneet Monga concluded: “Over the past decade, Apoorva, Karan and I have been talking about working together, and Kill happened after one of those meetings. Karan is an absolute cinephile, and he said, ‘Let’s do this — it’s a genre that has never been done before in India, and I would love to bring a totally extreme film to the audience.'”