Soccer star Lionel Messi setting boot on Indian shores will definitely boost the popularity of the beautiful game that has remained the poor-cousin of cricket in India. And timed to perfection is a rare attempt from Bollywood that raises issues that plague Indian football and push us to the bottom rung on international stage.
Standby is a sports-based film — a genre that has seen few like Lagaan, Awwal Number — and features in the even rarer bastion of soccer flicks like Saheb, Goal and forgotten, Cycle Kick. So, in a country of a billion cricket-crazy fans, why do filmmakers shy away from making films based on sports, is it the lack of icons, inspiration or an audience that has taste for such subjects? We tried finding out.
It requires a lot out of filmmakers and actors, says Kunal Deshmukh, director of Jannat, a film that touched upon match-fixing in cricket. “A good sports film needs money to look authentic and requires in-depth research. Actors too need training in the required sports,” he adds.
Sanjay Surkar, Standby’s director says, “We had 30-odd professional ex-national and club footballers from Goa and Mumbai with whom the protagonists trained with before we shot he match sequences. But it was really difficult to have a stadium full of spectators.”
“We are essentially not a sporting nation like the US or Australia. Cricket is a religion, but other than that we lack inspiration and hence such films are rare,” says Manan Rawat, an assistant film director.
A niche audience also hampers such films. “I guess filmmakers believe that sports-based films have a niche market or are male-centric only. But in the end every sports film is a great human story and we tend to forget that if narrated well any subject can do well,” Kunal adds.
“It is appalling that out of 125 crores we can’t produce 25 world class footballers,” says Sanjay and feels that when the sport becomes popular filmmakers too shall pursue the subject.