In his essay ‘Why
India Survives’, renowned historian Ramachandra Guha once credited Hindi cinema
as one of the major factors uniting our culturally and religiously diverse
country. Yet, over the past decade, there has been a noticeable shift towards
Indian regional cinema. South Indian cinema has experienced an exponential
boost in popularity over the past decade, with films like ‘2.0’ and the Bahubali
film duology bringing in more revenue at the box office than nearly every
Bollywood film and becoming part of the fabric of India’s pop culture.
SS Rajamouli’s Telugu epic ‘RRR’ made history this week, as it
became the first Indian film to bag a Golden Globe award. The song ‘Naatu
Naatu’, which famously took lyricist Chandrabose over 19 months to perfect,
became the first Asian song to win the Golden Globe for best original at the
80th Golden Globe Awards on January 11. ‘RRR’ was also a massive box office hit,
grossing Rs 1200 crores worldwide and becoming the third highest grossing
Indian movie of all time.
The quality of
production and talent on display in South Indian movies has resulted in
regional cinema establishing itself as are liable box office draw for viewers
across the country. Several big budget regional films are now dubbed in Hindi
and other languages for local release. The Kannada film ‘Kantara’ grossed over
Rs 400 crores and was universally acclaimed by both critics and audiences in
2022.
While Telegu,
Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam cinema continue their rise, Goan cinema has yet to
make an impact on audiences outside the state and establish itself as a film
industry in its own right. Films like ‘O Maria’,’Home Sweet Home’ and
‘Nachom-ia Kumpasar’ are beloved by local audiences and have been screened at
locations around the world by Goa film enthusiasts, but Goan films have been
unable to gain the traction needed to become commercially successful despite
critical acclaim.
Director Jeetendra Shikerkar,
whose film ‘D’Costa House’ premiered at IFFI 2021, comments on the the success
of South Indian movies and the state of Goan cinema. “As far as South Indian
films are concerned, they enjoy the support of their local population and have
an established audience. Movies like Nagarjuna’s ‘Ragada’ have been dubbed in
Hindi and broadcasted on national television. Set Max television bought a lot
of these South Indian movies and created an audience base. Then ‘Bahubali’ was
released and audiences across India became invested in regional cinema. These
film industries are already powerful entities in their own states, but did not
have a pan-India appeal due to the popularity of Bollywood. Plenty of South
Indian movies such as ‘Shiva’ have even been remade by Bollywood. Over time,
they discovered that they could dub their movies in Hindi and release them to
national audiences. The period has changed after ‘Bahubali’, lots of new
talent, actors such as ‘KGF’ star Yash and ‘Pushpa’ star Allu Arjun portray
these larger than life characters that appeal to audiences and know the pulse
of the North Indian audience as well. During the pandemic, people could not
watch films in cinemas but had enough free time to browse the content on OTT
platforms. These platforms have played a major role in exposing people to
regional cinema,” says Rajendra.
“In Goa, we are
trying our level best to produce and release Konkani movies. We have been
affected by the government’s subsidy withdrawal over the past six years. They
don’t seem keen on promoting Goan cinema despite emphasizing on preserving our
culture. Konkani cinema is an important medium through which we can preserve
our culture, yet we do not have proper cinema halls for us to screen our
movies. At Ravindra Bhavan, reserving a slot for a show is not viable, there
are events such as Konkani nataks, Marathi dramas, Tiatrs and social gatherings
taking place there as well. Most of our films do a limited amount of
screenings, and the local audiences do not attend even then, especially after
the pandemic. Without the government subsidy, it is no longer possible to even
make back the budget of the movie. The Konkani filmmakers need the support of
the Goan people as well as the state government. Interest in making Konkani
movies continues even now but the filmmakers are not earning anything. We make
movies out of our love for Konkani and Goa, but until it becomes a commercial
venture, no one will invest when they cannot even make back their money. Since
our actors are local, there is no glamour quotient involved despite our
efforts, and content from OTT platforms and other film industries also compete
for our audience base. We will not give up though, and some director or
producer keeps investing their money to make Konkani films. However, if this
state of affairs continues, it may not be possible to produce more Konkani
movies in the future,” says Jeetendra.
A Durga Prasad, whose
film ‘Enemy’ won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Konkani in
2016, shares his opinion on why Goan cinema is currently struggling, “I am a
producer of Goan cinema. Financially speaking, Goa’s smaller population means
that local viewership for the films is not enough to sustain the industry
without government aid. Money that is being invested in local language films is
not being recovered as the returns are not nearly enough. The state government
does not aggressively support the industry. South Indian movies are now high
budget movies starring talented actors. The content of a film is important for it’s
success, and they ensure that their film’s content is of a certain quality, and
they enjoy aggressive support from their governments.”
He says, “In Goa,
filmmakers require the financial support of the government to survive. The
infrastructure in Goa is inadequate, the sound systems at Ravindra Bhavan are
not functioning well enough, and we can’t screen our movies in cinema halls
like Inox. As such, producers who invest their money cannot get proper returns
after investing over a crore into the production process. We do want to make
good movies to honour the culture and language of the state and improve Goa’s
image, but most producers do not even make back their budget. We host IFFI in
Goa and screen movies from across the world, but cannot find a place or garner
support from our local movies.”
The director of ‘O
Maria’, Rajendra Talak has been a pillar of the Goan film industry. He
explains, “Language plays an important role in South India, and their movies
enjoy local support. Aspects of their culture that are reflected through music
are even modified and transition into the mainstream. Hindi films are even
being dubbed in regional languages for release in these states, which is a good
trend. People love watching good cinema regardless of whether it is regional or
commercial. The right balance of content and technique is important so that
technique does not overpower content or vice-versa. Regional cinema is the
backbone of the Indian film industry, and the industry should collaborate to
support film selections for international awards. Rather than sending entries
of mainstream Bollywood films, the government and industry should focus on
supporting the best national film of the year regardless of whether they are
regional films.”
He
further adds, “In Goa, it is the economics of filmmaking that are a a problem.
We need a large budget to ensure that a movie is executed with technical
expertise. Our cinema is viable as a creative model but not as a business
model. The state has a small population and insufficient theatres. This problem
has been present since the inception of Konkani cinema as no one has been able
to make good revenue from Goan films. Short films are now produced using
smaller budgets that are insufficient for making feature length movies. Though
the government does offer help, it is not sufficient. The government also
cannot fully finance a film and filmmakers have to take a loss of 50 percent or
more. The industry needs the complete support from the government for the next
10-15 years, till the scenario changes. Incentives like financing the next
movie of a national award winning film maker can be the stepping stone for our
cinema and show that the filmmakers are being supported. It is important to
focus on quality to make a change, and we have some young talent that has been
exposed to films due to events like IFFI, and are now studying in the domain of
cinema. Rather than producing ten low budget films, making two high quality
feature length films to represent Goa at the national level will help improve
the state of Goan cinema,” says Rajendra.