Bollywood actor Adil Hussain says Assamese cinema audience will come out to watch films at the movie theatres if the quality of movies improve.
"If the quality of Assamese films are improved and interesting movies are made, people will certainly come out to watch them in cinema halls," Hussain told reporters.
"If it is a good movie then it will be acceptable to the audience and they will come to watch it," said Hussain who has worked in both mainstream Hindi and art house cinema, besides theatre and television.
Speaking about his experience as an actor in American film "Life of Pi", the actor said, "There was no story as such and it was a small budget movie. But because of its quality and presentation it was successful."
Making a strong case for promotion of the films to enthuse viewers to come to the cinema halls, he said, "I have seen in Mumbai that even for a Rs seven crore small budget Hindi film a similar amount is designated for its promotion."
The actor called for raising the annual funding for the National Film Development Corporation.
"The annual budget for NFDC should be increased as the current funds available with the Corporation is not sufficient to finance films across the country.
"The funds should be at least Rs 300 crore and not the present Rs 30 crore for the entire country. I don't know what is the Assam State Film Finance and Development Corporation's budget, but it should also be raised. For a good and standard Assamese film, the budget needs to be about Rs one crore. So the ASFFDC budget should be raised to Rs 10 crore," Hussain said.
The 52-year-old actor was also appreciative of the way the recent Kolkata Film Festival was celebrated. "Film, art and culture personalities from different parts of India and abroad participated were present there. It was also a tourist attraction event."
Hussain would be acting in National award winning director Dr Santwana Bordoloi's "Maj Rati Keteki".
