Touch Me Not India

Touch Me Not

India | Hindi, French, Marathi | Drama, Others

Budget USD 625,000 Financing in place USD 160,000 Production Company Newscope Films Present at Film Bazaar Anjali Patil Monali Bhardwaj Looking for Co-Producers Distribution Partners Film Festivals/Programmers

Synopsis

Vasundhara lives a desirable life with her boyfriend in their neonlit flat in Mumbai. She appears as an extrovert and everyone is smitten by her charm; her boss admires her and feels entitled to inappropriately touch her too often. This triggers her repressed childhood trauma. 10-year-old Vasu feels at home in nature. There is a lack of parental care for Vasu and her sister. Vasu wanders off alone in nature and dances freely to connect with her surroundings. Vasu slowly shrinks as she experiences nonconsensual touch. She spirals down the path of alcohol and drug abuse and gets into inebriated sexual encounters at parties. At one party, she locks eyes with an eccentric man. At her request, they end up driving together all night. He introduces her to a community living an alternative lifestyle in Goa. Vasu’s nightmares turn into dreams of purity as she continues to heal. One dancer in the community invites her to jam with them. Vasu learns about ‘Contact Dance’ where the dancers’ bodies touch each other to create beautiful movement patterns. She rekindles her lost love of dancing and heals her relationship with touch.

Touch Me Not deals with a personal story where my memories of trauma merge with the artificial reality of the protagonist to create a cacophony. The idea of the body as glass and all the sensory experiences as fingerprints has been dancing in my mind for a long time. Especially the human skin and its obvious experience. For the past few years, I have been working on understanding the mind-body connection. Contact Dance was revolutionary in this process. It helped me to not only accept my body with all its past experiences but also expanded my mind to look at skin and body from a non-judgmental, open, and pure perspective. This knowledge needs to be shared in order to help and heal other bodies and minds. The film plays on the brink of reality and dream-state, city and jungle, childhood and adulthood, pleasure and pain.

Director(s)’ Biography

Anjali Patil earned her bachelor’s degree in Drama, with a gold medal from the Centre of Performing Arts at Pune University. Then, she was chosen to pursue her Master’s in Theatre Design and Direction at the esteemed NSD, Delhi.Anjali’s first feature-length project as a director is Neither a Girl Nor a Woman. It premiered at CSAFF in Chicago. Anjali has received the National Award for Naa Bangaaru Thalli and the Presidential Award of Sri Lanka for best actress for With You Without You. She has performed in acclaimed features like Mere Pyare Prime Minister, Kaala and Newton.

Anjali Patil Director

9920797362 anjali@anahatfilms.com

Producer(s)’ Biography

Jason has produced Creep, Severance and Triangle. He set up Newscope films, producing Honour and International Emmy-nominated, Secret State and Detour. In 2012, Jason established Bigscope Films recently completed films including Close, Aasha & The Street Dogs and The Bay Of Silence. Jason currently has five projects in post-production, Taj- Royal Blood and The Queen Mary with Alice Eve.

Monali Bharadwaj worked as an AD with Cinema Vision India, NDTV Imagine, Fox Television, Cinevistas Ltd., MTV India, etc. Her short films, Saving Chintu and Lata went to Oscar and Sundance film festival. She has also worked on long format shows and two regional films from Assam. Monali has been in the Mumbai industry for 15 years to further the creative vision of passionate artists in gender, social, and class equality.

Jason Newmark Producer

(+44) 7930374787 jason@newscopefilms.com

Monali Bharadwaj Producer

(+91) 9137927858 monali.bhardwaj7@ gmail.com

La Princesa De Kapurthala

The Princess of Kapurthala

Spain, United Kingdom, France, India | Spanish, English, French, Hindi | Drama Romance

Budget USD 11,070,176 Financing in place USD 4,374,621 Production Company POK Production Limited

Present at Film Bazaar Juan Antonio Casado Davide Cottarelli Patricia Fernández

Looking for Co-Producers Financiers Distribution Partners

Synopsis

Just over a century ago, Anita Delgado, a beautiful Spanish teenager, danced a brief flamenco in a Madrid nightclub, caught the eye of a visiting Indian prince, the Maharaja of Kapurthala, and married him. The modest café-owner’s daughter left her homeland to live for 18 years in opulent luxury in the Himalayan foothills with Jagatjit Singh. In Kapurthala, she married according to Sikh rites and took the name Prem Kaur.

They had a son, Ajit Singh, and traveled together for years through India and Europe, until in 1924, she was separated from the prince. After over eighteen years in English India, she returned to Europe, where she settled in the Paris of the roaring twenties. The Princess of Kapurthala made something of a splash in Indian high society. She was a popular face on the cover of newspapers and magazines at the beginning of the 20th century and was the privileged protagonist of the most important events during that era.

Anita Delgado became the Maharani Prem Kaur of Kapurthala in India at 16. The story is a 20th century romance, but she is not just a pretty face that the Maharajah falls in love with. Anita is also a strong and determined woman who learns everything needed to become a princess and later uses these charms to leave her trace in the European and Indian society of that time. A real love story, that we want to turn into a trilogy. The protagonist has all the ingredients to connect with the audience- beauty, youth, intelligence, along with glamour and a luxurious life. She was involved in some of the most important historical events at the beginning of the 20th century.

Director(s)’ Biography

Michael James Radford is an Indian-born English film director and screenwriter. His best-Known credits include 1984, The Merchant of Venice, Flawless and Il Postino-The Postman for which he won the BAFTA Awards for Best Direction and Best Film not in the English Language and earned Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Michael Radford Director

Producer(s)’ Biography

Juan Antonio Casado handles the production and management Department of Pok Production LTD that has acquired the rights for The Princess of Kapurthala and The Dream of the Maharani. His notable contributions are The Chess Player, The Cosmonaut, The El Escorial Conspiracy, The Stones of David, The Order, 8 Months and Borderland. He has been Technical Advisor of the Ministry of Culture and Liaison Officer for the Program 2000 of the European Commission.

Davide Cottarelli handles the production and management Department of POK Production LTD with a focus on financing, negotiation with digital platforms, and China market. He is the founder of Varcale Capital Management, a boutique investment company specialised in film & TV productions. His credit includes Twist as an executive producer.

Juan Antonio Casado Producer

(+34) 639218851 casado.juan@gmail.com

David Cottarelli Producer

(+44) 7787241241 davide.cottarelli@ varcalecap.com