Bhojan, a recent short film from Dharakala Productions, was given the certificate of excellence and nominated for the 12th Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival in 2022.
The team of Bhojan received this honour for their incredible presentation of possible human emotions. The movie is about a cheerful, free-spirited young man, Vishal, who works as a delivery boy in an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company called “Bhojan”. As he goes to different houses for food delivery, he observes the lifestyles and alluring personalities of various customers and dreams of becoming one of them. He gradually develops his own imagination through these innocent but lofty ambitions and begins to see himself as larger than life. But after his encounter with different lives, Vishal makes one final effort to fulfil his dream when his wise and experienced buddy “Baba” explains to him the cycle of life and comforts him.
Team of Rajiva Kumar and Associates and Dharakala at 12th Annual Dada Saheb Film Festival
Dharakala Productions has produced a few short films, commercial videos, and other content during the past year in addition to offering a wide range of additional services like distribution, assistance in casting for web series like Mirzapur, and many others. Dharakala has made noteworthy contributions to stage productions, web series, theatre, and television. Dharakala Productions is moving to a new headquarters in Mumbai after achieving enormous success and widespread acclaim in the short film genre. With its highly qualified management team, marketing resources and progressive business relationships, Dharakala Productions is trying to become well-positioned to take full advantage of the industry’s phenomenal on-going growth.
Mr. Pritish Raj, the Director of “Bhojan” and Founder of Dharakala Productions, is a well-known architect who provides his consultancy to the government of India on mega-scale institutional projects and other public-related buildings. His father, Mr. Rajiva Kumar Srivastava, whom he lost at a very young age and early in his career, left him with a magnanimous profile. Keeping his soul alive for the love of arts and his sympathy for the resource-deficient young talents of his city, in the year 2018, Dharakala was established to develop a platform for the underdogs that will eventually create a mark in the field of creativity and performing arts. By pulling together all the strands of creative and practical talent involved in the project, Mr. Pritish created the team for “Bhojan”.
As per a study conducted by 3EA Limited, a multi-national management consulting company, the rise of OTT Platforms and various government initiatives will help the expansion of the entertainment industry in Uttar Pradesh. Digital media market in India stood at Rs. 234.9 billion (US$ 3.16 billion) in the year 2020, which will be increasing at a CAGR of 22% till 2023 and will expand the market size to Rs. 424.5 billion (US$ 5.72 billion).
As stated by Pritish, “Both architecture and cinema, season my enthusiasm to create alternate realities, craft a scene or a space, creativity extends to both reel and real life.” Pritish is the technical director of ‘Rajiva Kumar & Associates’, an architectural firm founded by his father Mr. Rajiva Kumar Srivastava in 1992. It has delivered more than Rs. 45000 crores worth of projects in the last 30 years including the Gorakhpur Zoo, Uttar Pradesh; Central Agriculture University in Jhansi, Medical College in Tura, Meghalaya; 800 bedded hostel at IIT Roorkee Campus, etc. Pritish has been felicitated with multiple awards in the field of architecture like the Indian Institute of Concrete on 25th Sep 2021, CIDC Vishwakarma Award in 2018, Token of Appreciation for Excellence in the field of Architecture, presented by DG, ICCR, 2019; India World Foundation in February 2017, and many more. He further stated that for him architecture, construction and the world of cinema, all are different forms of arts all residing in our minds.
On the other hand, Mr. Vidish Raj, a civil engineer by profession, is Bhojan’s Associate Producer and Co-founder of Dharakala. Vidish has been encouraging his brother and all the artists over the years to display their years of hard work and has changed the way in which content can be created and viewed. He has provided the guidance that allowed for the creation and widespread acclaim of this cinematic miracle. He believes that his constant guidance and the 360-degree support by internationally acclaimed management consulting group, 3EA Limited, will create a long-term corpus to support these artists.
Vidish is the director of Archred Infra Energy (OPC) Private Limited, which is a sister company of Rajiva Kumar and Associates and an independent construction company based in Lucknow and has transformed various resources into facilities that is related to construction, maintenance, repair, and operation. After the passing of their father Mr. Rajiva Kumar, the entire responsibility of the legacy fell on Vidish and Pritish. Ever since they have been trying to fill his shoes and walk on his footprints. But today they have established their own mark in the society and at very young age they have taken huge goals for themselves.
Vidish aspires to take all the ventures of “Rajiva”, whether its architecture, construction or film production, to meaningful heights. Without differentiating between all their future and present ventures and through intense hard work, passion and natural talent, they are paced to achieve greater success.
