Filmmaker Bhaskar Hazarika’s latest Assamese film Aamis (Voracious), which is currently in development, has been selected for the prestigious Asian Project Market (APM), the biggest investment and co-production market in Asia which will take place for three days on October 15-17, 2017 at Busan, South Korea.
Produced by Poonam Deol of Signum Productions and Shyam Bora of Metanormal Motion Pictures, Aamis is a love story set in contemporary Guwahati, and is a film about empathizing with people who make terrible decisions in the pursuit of love. The project is presently in the pre-production stage and casting for the film is in process.
Commenting on the selection of his new film at APM, Bhaskar said, “The APM is a major film market and as an official selection, we will be able to attract attention from global collaborators who can help us achieve international standards of film production. I’m really thankful to the APM and the Busan International Film Festival for continuing to support our work after their post-production grant for our first film Kothanodi in 2015”
One of the biggest and most important pre-market for films in Asia, APM offers emerging filmmakers the opportunity to meet international leading film professionals and links them with global film investors, producers and distributors.
Producer Poonam Deol from Signum Productions says, “When the story of Aamis was narrated to me, I deeply felt that this is a rare film that had to be made for its profound and universal take on love, femininity and sexuality. Needless to say that it is a tremendous boost for our project to be selected at APM Busan. We are certain that the collaborations we foster at Busan will help us in producing a film of the highest international standards.”
This will be the 20th edition of the market and 28 films from 17 countries were announced as official selections. Aamis was one of only two projects selected from India. This year’s APM selection includes projects from Golden Globe best foreign language film award winner Siddiq Barmak (Osama) and Berlinale Generation director Yoon Gaeun (The World Of Us) among others. According to organizers, the number of projects submitted to APM this year went up “almost 25%” from the previous year to reach 317. In the 19 previous years, “a total of 499 projects have been selected with more than 220 of these projects realized into films.”
“This selection is a great honour. We hope to find the right international partners and collaborators at Busan to help bring this unique story from Assam to audiences the world over. Hopefully, APM will be the first of many steps in Aamis’ journey to its eventual release sometime later in 2018” said producer Shyam Bora from Metanormal Motion Pictures.
Bhaskar’s debut film Kothanodi, was released last year to critical and box office acclaim and went on to win the National Award for Best Film in Assamese.
