Bollywood taking Indian films global
Thu, October 09 2008
Based on a Rudyard Kipling story, the movie was a runaway hit and Dastagir’s performance was universally acclaimed. Wrote one film reviewer: “With a smile as broad as the Ganges and charm enough to lure the stripes off a tiger, the young Indian became an instant star.”
A slew of offers followed and Dastagir made Hollywood his base before moving on to Britain to make movies.
That was in 1937.
Seven decades later, India’s tryst with Hollywood is being cemented further with Mumbai-based tycoon Anil Ambani’s Reliance Big Entertainment on the verge of committing a $500-million investment in Steven Spielberg’s production house DreamWorks.
If the deal crystallizes, it will propel the Indian company to be one of the world’s largest entertainment companies. Last month, at the Cannes film festival, it had announced a clutch of deals with production houses in Hollywood, roping in marquee names such as Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
Ambani is not alone in going global with his reel dreams. Two Indian production houses, UTV Motion Pictures and Eros Entertainment, are today listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market and have offices abroad.
At the Cannes film festival, Britain signed a co-production pact with India that will have upcoming British talent starring in Hindi films as part of the UK Film Council’s agreement to spend 13 million pounds ($25 million) on broadening the film industry in the two countries.
Mumbai’s filmmakers were once considered tainted for allegedly receiving underworld funding; now, major production houses such as Yash Raj Films receive bank financing. And when making Krrish, his film about an Indian Superman, producer Rakesh Roshan tapped the Singapore Tourism Board’s $6.3 million Film in Singapore program that subsidizes international film productions by up to 50 per cent.
Alongside, newer markets outside the traditional Bollywood “strongholds” such as the U.S., Britain and West Asia are opening up: moviegoers in Australia, Holland, Turkey, Romania, and even China are showing an interest in Indian content.
In fact, Amsterdam has hosted what the Dutch media called the “Bollywood Oscars” — International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards for movies made in India. Dutch newspapers, magazines and websites covered the event in detail. This year’s event was held in Thailand.
Bollywood is an industry that few can afford to ignore these days. And to a great extent, it’s driven by the 25-million-strong Indian diaspora — with an estimated combined wealth of $300 billion — giving rise to a new genre of Bollywood flicks: “the NRI movies.”
By Anik Basu
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