Survival biggest challenge for regional cinema

Mumbai, April 08: Regional cinema may be more prolific, fertile in ideas and acknowledged by world audiences, but is

struggling to survive mainly because marketing is its weakest link, filmmakers and artistes say. Though glitzy Bollywood products constituted just 20.5 per cent of the 1,090 movies made in India in 2006, the way these films are marketed domestically and internationally makes all the difference, they noted.

"If the criteria of commercial success is used to judge matters, then Hindi cinema or Bollywood can't match regional cinema as the former is better placed in that sense," noted actor-director Amol Palekar said.

"The situation is the worst for Marathi cinema, particularly during 1996-2002, when its revival became a serious issue," Palekar said at a discussion during the recent FICCI-Frames, a mega media entertainment event here. The only way of survival for regional cinema is to circumvent the traditional method of reaching masses through cinema halls and use new media to reach out to a larger variety of people, said Malayalam director T K Rajeev Kumar.

According to Kumar, also chairman of the Kerala Chalachitra Academy, the industry in that state is now looking to "create the right kind of audience" for their films.

"We in Kerala have decided to breed a cinema-viewing culture and create an ambience for Malayalam cinema across the world," Kumar said.

"For this we have compiled the 15 best films of Malayalam cinema as part of a package marking 75 years of our industry, and are taking it to people across the world," Kumar said.

The idea, he said, is to first create the right environment and taste among people and then release the films in cinema halls.

The Indian film industry, which was estimated at Rs 85 billion in 2006, is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 16 per cent to touch Rs 175 billion in 2011, a FICCI- Pricewaterhousecoopers study has said.

Of the 1,090 movies made in India last year, only 223 were in Hindi. Yet, not many know that movies were also made in languages as diverse as Konkani, Santhali, Sadari, Tind, Nepali and Maithili apart from the usual Telugu, Tamil, Bengali and Assamese, as recorded by the Film and Television Producers Guild of India.

Despite being a mega star in Tollywood, Bengali actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, who is often credited with the only reason for its survival, expressed the insecurity in that part of the country.

"There was a time when we went through a major crisis, particularly after the death of our dear Uttam Kumar and the moving out of the scene of Soumitra Chatterjee," the popular actor said.

"Although things are much better now, we still need to change a lot of things. I think corporatisation could be a welcome development to begin with," he said.

That could help with the marketing of regional cinema, which needs a major fillip to make its presence felt, Palekar said.

According to him, a Marathi film with an average budget of Rs 40-75 lakh cannot even afford print advertisements, let alone the multi-media blitzkrieg used by Bollywood. Palekar, whose film "Paheli" starring Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee was India's entry for the Oscars last year, however, said regional cinema's future was extremely bright.

This, he said, is because non-Hindi cinema makes very significant original contributions, wins a lot of accolades and manages to survive in spite of Bollywood and beyond Bollywood.

"Although they are now talking about Indian cinema going global, what one needs to realise is that it is regional cinema which is primarily responsible for taking Indian films to the world," KCA's Kumar pointed out.

Bureau Report