Cannes 2015 Market Report: THE MONK WHO FUCKED A LIMOUSINE AKA INDIA'S DAUGHTER, The Hideous Nature Of Bad Taste
The Cannes Film Market, or Marche du film, can be among the most vibrant and exciting part of the iconic festival's ancillary events. This is where filmmakers go to sell their wares, films are bought and sold for different territories, people with ideas come to look for financing, and filmmakers and vision meet up with people with money and sometimes, just sometimes, magic happens. However, any veteran of the Marche can also tell you that it's where people with truly shitty ideas come to pimp them out hoping to cash in on the lowest common denominator to find funding for their terrible, ugly ideas.
Internet, meet The Monk Who Fucked A Limousine.
The title sure does grab your attention. I first encountered this film through social media, when Jonny Bunning, who works with several film festivals and is a writer with horror site Bloody Disgusting, shared it on his Facebook page and eventually as part of a gallery at B-D. Then, a day later, a different poster of the same film appeared in the timeline of none other than horror mogul Brian Yuzna, who also found it intriguing to say the least.
So, Internet, here's the deal with The Monk Who Fucked a Limousine.
The posters, all three of which I've posted below together with a press image, list an alternate title of India's Daughter and a director named Rupesh Paul. Paul is an Indian filmmaker who grabbed a few recent headlines via his interminably stalled Kama Sutra 3D, starring a very nude Sherlyn Chopra, the first Playboy centerfold of Indian descent. That film has been present at the Marche for at least 3 years, Paul insists it's been sold in dozens of territories around the world, and yet no one has ever seen it. Not only that, but in the promotional trailers, Paul states that the film's scores has been nominated for an Academy Award. I'm sure the Academy might have something to say about that, considering the film has yet to see the light of day anywhere in the world.
Kama Sutra 3D is one of the most high profile con jobs in Indian cinema history. The film has been repeatedly delayed since 2013, and still has no release date. There's no way it'll release uncut in India as nudity is still banned via the censors, and it hasn't made landfall anywhere else, in spite of Paul's bluster. Chopra, the leading lady of the film, has famously disavowed herself of the film in reaction to Paul's allegedly underhanded behavior (though, to be fair, she still retweets anything said about the film or herself on her Twitter page).
Kama Sutra 3D may never see the light of day, but even if it does, you can be reasonably sure that it'll be terrible from everything I've heard. If Paul's slippery nature ended there, it'd be enough, however, he's proven himself to be quite the opportunist. His next announced feature was called The Vanishing Act, it centered around a missing airplane and was announced in the immediate aftermath of the Malaysia Air MH370 disaster. The plane disappeared on March 8th, and Paul had a promo trailer up and running on May 17th. Since then, no word on the film, though Paul insisted in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that, "the controversy [of the missing plane] will help indirectly, but we are not cashing in on the flight."
This latest project, The Monk Who Fucked a Limousine a.k.a. India's Daughter, is even less tasteful than The Vanishing Act. You may recall a terrible rape case in India in which a young medical student was gang raped by six men in a private bus and later died of horrific injuries sustained in the event. The BBC made a documentary about the event that was banned in India, however, this was no problem for Rupesh Paul, whose complete non-sequitur of a title goes along with an film dramatizing these events.
Some might say that this is exploitation at it's finest, and maybe so. Exploitation often does depend upon duping unwittingly movie fans into cinemas with salacious posters and film titles, but the difference with Paul's work is that nothing has made it to a cinema since the announcement of Kama Sutra 3D, it's all been smoke and mirrors. Maybe once Paul makes a movie that someone, anyone at all, wants to see, I'll give him a pass. That hasn't happened yet, so please, film buyers out there, keep your money.
Internet, meet The Monk Who Fucked A Limousine.
The title sure does grab your attention. I first encountered this film through social media, when Jonny Bunning, who works with several film festivals and is a writer with horror site Bloody Disgusting, shared it on his Facebook page and eventually as part of a gallery at B-D. Then, a day later, a different poster of the same film appeared in the timeline of none other than horror mogul Brian Yuzna, who also found it intriguing to say the least.
So, Internet, here's the deal with The Monk Who Fucked a Limousine.
The posters, all three of which I've posted below together with a press image, list an alternate title of India's Daughter and a director named Rupesh Paul. Paul is an Indian filmmaker who grabbed a few recent headlines via his interminably stalled Kama Sutra 3D, starring a very nude Sherlyn Chopra, the first Playboy centerfold of Indian descent. That film has been present at the Marche for at least 3 years, Paul insists it's been sold in dozens of territories around the world, and yet no one has ever seen it. Not only that, but in the promotional trailers, Paul states that the film's scores has been nominated for an Academy Award. I'm sure the Academy might have something to say about that, considering the film has yet to see the light of day anywhere in the world.
Kama Sutra 3D is one of the most high profile con jobs in Indian cinema history. The film has been repeatedly delayed since 2013, and still has no release date. There's no way it'll release uncut in India as nudity is still banned via the censors, and it hasn't made landfall anywhere else, in spite of Paul's bluster. Chopra, the leading lady of the film, has famously disavowed herself of the film in reaction to Paul's allegedly underhanded behavior (though, to be fair, she still retweets anything said about the film or herself on her Twitter page).
Kama Sutra 3D may never see the light of day, but even if it does, you can be reasonably sure that it'll be terrible from everything I've heard. If Paul's slippery nature ended there, it'd be enough, however, he's proven himself to be quite the opportunist. His next announced feature was called The Vanishing Act, it centered around a missing airplane and was announced in the immediate aftermath of the Malaysia Air MH370 disaster. The plane disappeared on March 8th, and Paul had a promo trailer up and running on May 17th. Since then, no word on the film, though Paul insisted in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that, "the controversy [of the missing plane] will help indirectly, but we are not cashing in on the flight."
This latest project, The Monk Who Fucked a Limousine a.k.a. India's Daughter, is even less tasteful than The Vanishing Act. You may recall a terrible rape case in India in which a young medical student was gang raped by six men in a private bus and later died of horrific injuries sustained in the event. The BBC made a documentary about the event that was banned in India, however, this was no problem for Rupesh Paul, whose complete non-sequitur of a title goes along with an film dramatizing these events.
Some might say that this is exploitation at it's finest, and maybe so. Exploitation often does depend upon duping unwittingly movie fans into cinemas with salacious posters and film titles, but the difference with Paul's work is that nothing has made it to a cinema since the announcement of Kama Sutra 3D, it's all been smoke and mirrors. Maybe once Paul makes a movie that someone, anyone at all, wants to see, I'll give him a pass. That hasn't happened yet, so please, film buyers out there, keep your money.
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