Indie Being Cyrus Takes Indian Box Office by Storm

The low budget film Being Cyrus, based on a short story by writer Kersi Khambhatta, is setting new records at the Indian box office for its clever plot fine performances and brilliant cinematography. The film's distributor PVR says that Being Cyrus has set a record with its first weekend collection – Rs two crores and counting.

Being Cyrus is one of the new wave of independent low budget films being made in India, where the market has traditionally been dominated by Bollywood extravaganzas.

These new films concentrate on drama rather than spectacle and are filmed in English with an eye to international markets. They are proving increasingly popular with India's well-educated, rising, urban middle class. Ironically, Khambatta's story almost never made it to print, let alone the screen.

“In September 2001, I was in America and I was asked by a friend to write a crime feature for a magazine, so I wrote out this story which never made it to print,” said Khambatta.

Five years on, Khambatta's nine-page crime feature built around a Mumbai Parsi family has moved from his inbox to a 101-page screenplay.

The film's director Homi Adajania says he didn't have to do much to adapt the story for the screen.

“I decided as soon as I read the story that I wanted to make the film but I didn’t want to move away from it, as it would dilute what the film was about,” said Adajania.

“When we were writing the screenplay I visualised the film in my head. I think that's what appealed to the actors because when I did a narration of the movie they actually saw the movie and they liked what they saw,” he added.

Adajania and Khambatta are both taken aback by the film’s success but they're already planning their next film set in a Christian community in Goa.