Where are the colorful dresses? (Photo: Manan Singh Katohora)

With his most recent film, 9 Eleven, now in the can, local Bollywood director Manan Singh Katohora is busy raising funds for his next project: Pralay, or "Armageddon," a thriller about survivors of a Mayan calender–inspired 2012 apocalypse. According to this announcement, Katohora's "take on the subject is very fresh with Strong Emotional Quotient." He won't say much more about the plot than that, but the English-language title he provided, Procreate, gives me hope that there might be a gritty sex scene or two.

Pralay is scheduled to shoot this summer, by which time Katohora hopes to have raised three quarters of his $300,000 budget. The entirety of 9 Eleven's $250,000 budget was covered by three producers. Katohora can't bank on that happening again, so he's offering a 2.5 percent investment stake for $10,000; three people have opted in thus far. Like 9 Eleven, the film will be shot on RED digital cameras, which some of today's best-known directors now use.

Though Katohora calls 9 Eleven D.C.'s first Bollywood film, and calls Pralay the first post-apocalyptic Bollywood film in the world — and though both are in Hindi — neither is a conventional Bollywood film. While 9 Eleven is interrupted just once by a song-and-dance, compared to the usual seven or eight, Pralay won't even have one such musical number. And like 9 Eleven, Pralay is expected to be closer in length to Hollywood films than Bollywood films, which sometimes exceed four hours.

So can these two rightly be called Bollywood films?

Katohora, 35, of Silver Spring, says the definition of a Bollywood film has changed in recent years, with horrors and thrillers joining the usual mix of drama and romance. "New wave filmmakers are trying new topics, new genres," he says. But in D.C. it's a one-man show: Katohora, whose first two films were English-language, straight-to-DVD indies, says he doesn't know of anyone else making Bollywood films in the District. "I think, as of now in D.C., it's just my team so far. I hope more and more filmmakers come and make movies here."

9 Eleven, which is in post-production, will have a nationwide release in India and a limited release elsewhere, according to Katohora, who wants to have a local premiere in April or May. Pralay, meanwhile, will shoot in northern Virginia and, he hopes, at D.C. sound stage Bella Facia. After all, what would a post-apocalyptic thriller be without a little CGI?