Neeraj Pandey: Serious films demand clutter-breaking promotions

National Award-winning filmmaker Neeraj Pandey who is coming up with his new film 'Operation Romeo' as a producer, says a film like that addresses the issue of moral policing needs to be promoted in a unique way.

Post the release of its trailer, the cast and crew of 'Operation Romeo' did a unique social media and on-ground campaign involving common people, especially young couples on the street.

Referring to such activity to promote his film, asked about how he involves himself in the process of making strategies, Neeraj pointed out why he along with his team are always looking for innovative ways to promote a film.

Neeraj said: "In our film 'Operation Romeo', we have some very good actors but the protagonist of the film - Sidhant Gupta and Vedika Pinto are debutants. Of course, Sharad (Kelkar) is a popular name. But our film is an important, relatable and hard-hitting story. At a time when star-driven films are ready in the pipeline every Friday for release, it is tough to make noise for a film like ours." He went on adding, "If the star is the face of a film, they just need to show up to the media and their fans, audience will go and watch the film quite willingly. For a film with newcomers, you need a clutter-breaking idea for promoting the film. I believe that a serious story demands such an innovative way of reaching out to the audience."

The story of the film revolves around police harassment of a young couple followed by a revenge story. As the film is produced under his banner Friday Filmworks, Neeraj decodes his way of choosing a story for producing and directing. "Not all the film I produce, I direct also. I have my parameters for choosing those projects. It is quite simple. For example, we decided to produce 'Rustom' because we had the interest in the subject of the film. "But the treatment the story demanded from the director, I knew I was not the right person for that. You see, the voice of the director reflects in a film. So, when I direct a film or create a show like 'Special Ops' or 'A Wednesday!' I am expressing my voice through it as a storyteller," Neeraj explained.

'Operation Romeo' is the official Hindi remake of the Malayalam film 'Ishq' released in 2019 based on the real-life incident that happened to Anuraj Manohar, who eventually directed 'Ishq'.

The Hindi film 'Operation Romeo', directed by Shashant Shah, also starring - Bhumika Chawla, Kishore Kadam, Sharad Kelkar - releases in theatres on April 22.