" launched-Chandigarh based production house "Eyeline Entertainment"
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| Puneet Sira, Vakeana Dhillon Sira and Vikram Dhillon |
Producer and director duo, Vikram Dhillon and Puneet Sira, while launching Eyeline Entertainment, a Chandigarh-based production house, promises to raise the bar by offering different cinema
As long as the audience has a reason to buy tickets and as long as they walk out with smiles, it is all okay. There are a couple of parameters that producer and director duo Vikram Dhillon and Puneet Sira have set for themselves and within these well-defined boundaries, they are out to churn out, "new and different cinema." "We are here to raise the bar," Puneet Sira, emphasises on the creative rhetoric, makes his aims and objectives more specific, while announcing Eyeline Entertainment, a Chandigarh-based production house. He elaborates, "Eyeline is just a technical term used in production for the direction in which an actor looks. It seemed apt and so we named it so." He adds, "We'll be actively involved in the production house and running the office ourselves."
Director's den
Brought up in Canada, Vikram Dhillon, film producer, director, actor and former VJ, has to his credit films like Pinky Moge Wali after having hosted television shows V Challenge, Cool Maal and Late Night V. It's a vast spectrum of experience that Vikram brings while donning the hat of a director.
"The first venture of the production house too will be directed by me. We'll be announcing everything about it in a couple of days," he says. There's nothing else they are willing to divulge about the "exciting venture," for which the shooting begins in the next ten days. He says, "As of now, we are holding back to what the film is, the star cast will be and what subjects we are dealing with. We'll speak about all of that when the time comes." He adds, "All I can assure is that it will be a Punjabi film with a novel story line."
Lens eye
So they aren't giving into the herd mentality, where every singer turns an actor? Laughs Puneet, "There are singers who are great actors while not every actor can sing; If a singer cannot act, we won't go ahead with him," says Puneet Sira, the British and Bollywood film director, producer, screenwriter and actor, who has a long career in the industry and a longer list of films to his credit, starting with Kisaan, Jai Veeru, I-Proud to be an Indian et al. "I left England fifteen years ago. Usually people go there, but we've come back."
He seems to defy the trends in ways more than one. "There's a certain attitude towards regional cinema - everything works. This attitude we won't tolerate," he makes his focus clear while keeping his options open. "We'll continue making Hindi films, but over the next couple of years our focus will be on Punjabi cinema."
His wife Vekeana Dhillon, Vikram's sister, a screenwriter, will look after the story-telling aspect of things having written Pinky Moge Wali, I-Proud to be an Indian, Jai Veeru and Kisaan. The medium to higher range budget films might fall in the mainstream commercial genre, but there's a fine and clear line segmenting their work. "We'll have songs, dance numbers and glamour but there will be a strong story-line. We'll make sure it's different." Somehow or the other!