The role of a British scientist residing in India is one of the last essayed by the Tom Alter for a movie titled Out Of Time. The sci-fi horror movie’s director Arijit Lahiri, who is seeking crowdfunding for the finishing touches, hopes it pays a tribute to the legacy of the actor.

Tom Alter lost a battle against skin cancer in September.

“Tom sir plays the character of Dr Maxwell, a British scientist from 1912, residing in India. Dr Maxwell is trying to invent a time machine for his experiments and theories related to time travel. Nobody could have played this character better than him, he is truly one of the best people I have met in my life.

“He co-operated with us on every front. His acting prowess and craft was par excellence; and he was very spontaneous, almost every take he gave us was good. In fact, since all his scenes were so good that we were spoiled for choice on the edit table. We are forever indebted to him and hope the film is able to pay tribute to his legacy,” Lahiri said.

The independent filmmaker says he had a tough time getting producers to understand the concept of the film, with which he wanted to try something really different than the usual “easy/almost funny” horror fare the Indian audience is used to.

“Many producers told us that this film is too intelligent for the Indian audience who have been exposed to very different kinds of films in the horror genre. We beg to differ,” he said.

Lahiri describes Out Of Time as a first-of-its-kind science fiction horror film based on the concept of time loop wherein a certain length of time, such as a few hours, repeats itself over and over again and the protagonist has to solve the mystery around this and overcome it somehow.

“This film is about a troubled young man – Sameer, who is puzzled by his father’s mysterious disappearance. He, along with his girlfriend and friends goes to a colonial era mansion to find some answers, but instead he gets stuck in a never ending time loop, only to discover astonishing facts from the past,” he said.

To ensure the movie reaches the audience in the way it’s meant to, Lahiri has started a crowdfunding campaign on Wishberry to raise Rs 30 lakh.

“The production cost of the movie is around Rs 1 crore. We have already invested all the money we could — Rs 70 lakh towards the project. The Rs 30 lakh raised from crowdfunding will be used towards shooting some important additional scenes and post-production work like Digital Intermediate, Visual Effects and Sound Mixing without which, the film will not be as good as the international works we see, in terms of technical prowess,” Lahiri said.

He is confident that the success of this campaign will go towards proving his belief in the content, true.

What does he think of the crowdfunding system in India, and how has it turned out to be a boon for indie filmmakers?

“Crowdfunding, although, still a very new concept in India is beginning to take off at a rapid pace especially in the metros. Though it was initially considered as a funding tool for social causes, people are now beginning to understand and fund creative projects.

“For indie filmmakers, this is a real boon as it gives them a triple advantage – they get funds to make their film as per their creative vision without any manipulations or pressures from financiers; they get to test their project’s appeal in terms of the number of people who would want to watch their film; and they get directly connected with the people who would be interested in watching the film and so it becomes a tool for marketing, too.”