Anju Purushot on love of producing and highlight of her esteemed career

Sara Fowler
Nov 3 · 5 min read
Anju Purushot on set of Du commercial

With a producer as a mother and a cinematographer as a father, Anju Purushot spent her childhood immersed in the world of filmmaking. All her vacations were scheduled around shooting dates, and days off school meant days on a set. Actors, cameramen, costumes, props: these were all regular aspects of her early life. A set is a second home for her. It was therefore only natural that she too would dedicate her life to the same craft, bringing films, television shows, and commercials to life. She has watched as cinema and production have evolved over the course of her life, which gives her an outstanding knowledge of the craft.

Now, Purushot is an in-demand producer herself all around the world. She has worked on many successful projects, including the films Free as the Wind, Achchamundu! Achchamundu! and Kalpitham, but her real passion lies in making commercials. She has taken home several of the advertising industry’s most prestigious awards for her work and worked with many iconic brands ranging from McDonald’s to Samsung, and countless others.

Purushot has a lot to be proud of, but she calls working on a fun and unique series of commercials five years ago for the leading United Arab Emirates telephone and broadband company, Du, to be the highlight of her career. The project was developed keeping in mind true human insights about movie genres and entertainment. It shows the clever idea of how things in two’s are most often better than one, creating the “Du Tuesdays” proposition, two movie tickets for the price of one, uniquely and memorably.

The series features four commercials, all that begins with a clip of a different type of movie, followed by a single person in the audience watching. “Too Depressing” shows a starving mother and son, who also happens to have lung cancer, eating their last meal for an indefinite period of time before jumping to the man in the theatre and the message that “some movies are just too depressing to watch alone”. A similar idea follows for “Too Complicated”, “Too Boring” and “Too Scary”.

Purushot on set of Du commercial in Manchester

“The idea is so simple, so straightforward — that’s why it resonated with the audience straight away. As there was nothing complicated script wise, we put all our energies into giving the films the best production value. Though we only had a budget of a quarter million dollars, we pulled off films that can stand in comparison to many other award-winning work globally. It was something that the region hadn’t seen before, so it was fresh, likable and to date remembered by people when they talk about best campaigns from the region,” says Purushot.

As Producer on the project, Purushot was involved in the initial scripting and storyboarding phase and tasked with finding the right director and production house for the four films. She approached award-winning director Ali Ali to helm this project, who bought his own unique spin in the treatment. Working closely with the production team, she shot the project locally in Beirut, Lebanon, though the look and feel was of international production levels. After filming in Lebanon, the films were graded in Beirut and edited in Cairo, so Purushot had to work closely with all the production partners around the world as well as have everything signed off by the director, creatives and clients before they launched the films.

“Anju proved her worth and extraordinary abilities as a producer who is able to solve all of the complex and time-sensitive problems that arise during production. In fact, she was more deeply involved in the production and post-production process than any normal producer would be, working day and night to produce a copy that met my meticulous standards as well as the expectations of our client. Anju’s contribution to this project, therefore, was pivotal. I cannot imagine that this production would have become as popular and successful as it is today without her integral work,” said Ali Ali, Director of the “Du Tuesdays” commercial series.

Crew of “Du Tuesdays”

The commercials were first launched in cinemas in the largest cineplex chain in UAE. Following that was the online and TV launch of the copy, and soon it went viral with thanks to its creative storytelling and great production value. These commercials were the first of their kind in the region, and went on to win big in the Dubai Lynx awards, gaining 15 golds and 13 silvers and also swept other festivals worldwide. The real highlight for Purushot was to hear that they went head to head on shortlists with other multi-million dollar projects at Cannes and came out with the region’s first ever Gold film lion.

“That moment was surreal. We always knew the films were meant to be much bigger than they were but winning at Cannes cemented the success of all the hard work that went into this,” she recalls. “Winning for anything regionally especially on film is a big thing — we are up against projects from US and Europe that typically have great briefs, no creative restrictions and one to two million dollars as budgets to start with. For us to win that big with such simple smart films is a huge inspiration not just for all of us in the project but for the region in itself. Our films need to be culturally sensitive and also reach a wide diaspora of people so writing and producing something of that sort is not an easy task, so any recognition is worth its while.”

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