Who is funding u-ra-mi-li?

u-ra-mi-li is a film that is not just experimental in its narrative but also in its funding. It is the latest of the films making it to big screens across the country with funding from the “crowd”. Theatre personality Iswar Srikumar and documentary filmmaker Anushka Meenakshi are behind u-ra-mi-li. Meaning, the song of our people, in Chokri, a Naga dialect, the film aims “to break down the distance between the place, the people, the film makers, and the audience, so that the audience can see performance in a natural, personal, unfussy, un-dressed up, way. The agenda is not to document capsules of visual cultural data, but to tell the stories that we encounter on our journey across our country.”
“We have been travelling on and off since March 2011. We first went to Rajasthan as a test run and then headed to the North Eastern part of the country, meeting artistes of varied types. What started off as a six-month travel has turned into a three-year project to make a film about music, rhythm and performance. This feature-length film, we hope to screen in theatres by May-June 2014,” Iswar and Anushka, who have traveled to the distant corners of the country, explain and add, “Our film is dependent on, and has been changing because of, the feedback that we have had from people and we’re waiting to hear more.”
The film now has a dedicated website, www.u-ra-mi-li.in [1]. “With u-ra-mi-li,” the filmmakers say, “we are attempting to bring this quality of change into the process of filmmaking. At every stage, we create a short edit to reflect our thought process, incorporating some of the reactions and suggestions from people who we screen these segments to — including funders, friends, family, the performers and communities we film with, as well as, schools. This last is very important to us as some of the most interesting feedback we have got so far has been from children, who tend to react at a very instinctive and intuitive level, which helps us make simple connections.” All contributions made to the film is tax exempt.