Bollywood movies a craze in Maldives too

PANJIM, SEPT 19
Bollywood movies have not only created a big bang in the western countries like US and UK, it has also been a source of inspiration to a scarcely populated country of Maldives.
National award winning actor from Maldives Ali Seezan today said that Maldivian film industry is highly influenced by Bollywood and majority population speaks Hindi language.
“Several Maldivian remake movies from Hindi films are a blockbuster at box offices there. This is also because nearly 80 percent of Maldives population speaks Hindi because of the Bollywood movies,” Seezan, who is participating in the South Asian Film Festival (SAFF) in the capital city of Panjim said.
He said that any film shooting in Maldives are free of cost.
The actor who himself speaks decent Hindi is known as Shahrukh Khan of Maldivian cinema. Whilst, he has played role of Akshay Kumar in the ‘Dhadkan’ movie remake called ‘Hingo Dani’.
The Hindi movie also starred Shilpa Shetty, Sunil Shetty and Mahima Chowdhary as lead actors. 
A super hit Bollywood thriller – ‘Raaz’ starring Dino Morea and Bipasha Basu was also remade in Maldivian language.
“Shahrukh Khan and John Abraham are popular in Maldives. We acquire strength from Bollywood movies,” he further said.
He however added that though Bollywood explores Maldives for its film shootings, the relations between the two film industries are yet to be achieved.
Comprising a population of merely about 300,000, the country suffers set back to market their movies.
“Our film industry is small as we are not a densely populated country. We release 10 movies annually. Since the population is scattered on different islands, it becomes difficult to market movies. So also, we don’t have celluloid films,” he concluded.