Treat regional cinema at par with Bollywood, says film fraternity

FICCI FRAMES 2007

Why aren't regional films treated as Indian cinema? This was just one of the questions posed by the regional film fraternity at Ficci-Frames during the session on 'Regional cinema: Beyond Bollywood'.

The panelists included renowned regional film personalities like Amol Palekar (from the Marathi film industry), T K Rajeev Kumar (from the Kerela film industry), and filmmakers from Orissa and Bengal.

"The major challenge that the regional cinema needs to address is of how to widen the audience base," said a member of the regional film fraternity.

The fraternity was of the opinion that while Bollywood movies were screened with subtitles in not only the domestic but also in the international market, the same could be done to encourage regional cinema.

Experts suggested that the state could consider screening of regional cinema at subsidised tickets.

The government had, in the past, taken measures to promote regional movies like rentals in the film city studios were discounted, entertainment tax was done away with, film production and development were offered sops, and so on. However, these measures were brought into effect post the issue of survival that the regional cinema was facing during 1996-2002.

"These measures have certainly helped the industry survive, but has not created space for regional cinema," said Amol Palekar. He added that it was unfair to compare Bollywood industry with regional cinema since the budgets were different. While a regional film's budget could be between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 75 lakh, a Hindi movie's budget could run into crores. He suggested that it was time to make provisions for the publicity of regional cinema.

Bengali actor Prasenjeet said, "The regional film fraternity needs a proper plan for corporatisation, financing of movies, distribution and marketing of films in not only India but internationally as well."

The solution, in T K Rajeev Kumar's view, was that the regional cinema industry should consider leveraging on new mediums like Internet, international film festivals, satellite television, broadcasters, and other such options to reach out to newer audiences. "We need to reach out to new audiences via new mediums, only after doing this can we consider nation-wide theatrical releases," he said.