Making it in the US of A

HOLLYWOOD REEL/ Foreign films are finding their place in the sun in the US

Hollywood film director Billy Wilder once remarked: "Shoot a few scenes out of focus, I want to win the foreign film award." That image of international cinema in the US has undergone a sea change.

The critically acclaimed films of the world that reach American theatres are capable of competing with the best that Hollywood writers and directors can dream up.

In 2004 foreign language films have shown impressive box office figures, rivalling their English-language art-house counterparts.

In 2003 only seven foreign titles broke the $1 million mark and "Nowhere in Africa" topped the charts at over $6 million. But in 2004, 14 new movies have already broken the $1 million mark.

These include "The Motorcycle Diaries," "Maria Full of Grace," "Good Bye, Lenin!" and "Monsieur Ibrahim." "City of God" added nearly $3 million in 2004, with its astounding 18 months in theatrical release.

The biggest foreign film this year was Zhang Yimou's martial arts spectacle "Hero" with $54 million in ticket receipts (making it the third highest-grossing foreign film ever in the US behind "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Life is Beautiful").

"Hero" is one of a new breed of foreign films that attempt to emulate Hollywood's style but at the same time express a distinct national culture. Miramax paid $20 million for the rights to "Hero," though it sat on the film for almost two years even though it had an Academy Award nomination for best foreign language film.

Meanwhile, Zhang's other film "House of Flying Daggers," embarked on a distribution pattern similar to "Crouching Tiger," starting out small with 15 screens. It will be on over a 1,000 sceens by mid-January.

With the success of Chinese language films in the US, film makers of other nations are now adopting the new global-local strategy.

Like their counterparts in China, foreign directors are today concerned about Hollywood's growing presence in their countries; so they are now aiming at the export markets.

This is clearly visible with the Hollywood -influenced "Taegukgi" from South Korea, "Night Watch" from Russia and "Raumschiff Surprise "� Periode 1" from Germany.

But for 30 years the market for foreign films was gradually shrinking in the United States with the rise of American independent film, the creation of cinema chains and the vertical integration of the film industry.

A few years ago imports represented less than one per cent of all films shown in the United States. In such an environment, the role played by US distributors of foreign films becomes ever more crucial.

Among the major specialised distribution companies promoting international films in the US are Fox Searchlight, Sony Classics, Paramount Classics, Miramax, HBO/Fine Line, ThinkFilm and Focus Features.

The specialised distributors turned their Chinese or French or Spanish language films into must-see movies for American audiences. Miramax deserves credit for helping to introduce average American viewers to East Asian art cinema and for popularising Hong Kong action film in the 1990s.

The distributors often "sanitise" the international fare for average American viewers by re-editing them, (that is, 18 minutes of Zhang's "Hero" were edited out), dubbing them into English, or adding new subtitles and soundtracks.

In a country where audiences are historically allergic to subtitles, the surprise success of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (grossed $128m in 2000) in the face of a blockbuster like "Gladiator" has created a new market for subtitled films "� proof either that American audiences don't find subtitles as repellent as previously thought or, more significantly, that they're more willing to go out of their way to seek alternatives to what Hollywood has been offering.

Hollywood is today facing international competition where there is a creative explosion of talented film makers who are crossing language boundaries by making movies that people around the world respond to.

At the same time, American viewers are sending a clear signal to foreign film industries that for the sake of cinematic diversity their new style of film making has a chance in the US.

Today there exists an opportunity for enterprising Indian film makers to deliver a product that does a balancing act of a visually slick film with a distinctly Indian feel that breaks box office records at home and performs well in Asia and Europe.

(Lall is the president and CEO of LALL Entertainment, a company based in Los Angeles and New Delhi.) He can be contacted at

lallentertainment@hotmail.com