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The new buzzword in showbiz
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The film industry has become more organised, more corporate today, says veteran filmmaker Ramesh Sippy in an interview
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PHOTO: SHAJU JOHN
TALKING CINEMA Ramesh Sippy
"It's all become corporate of late, so the dates are all fixed well in advance," says actor Madhavan, talking as an ambassador for the IIFA Awards held in Dubai recently.
Corporatisation is the way ahead, believes Ramesh Sippy, director and board member of the Advisory Council for IIFA Awards, who was in the city recently.
"The industry has become more organised, more corporate. That's the way ahead. But, always remember, in spite of corporatisation, if the independent filmmaker has the guts and the talent, he will find a way to make his film," says Sippy. "Today, in America, with all the corporatisation, you still have the independent film maker. He, as an independent, manages to get his backing, his cast and his film across to a larger audience. And then, he may join the studio system and make it big. Like Spielberg created his own studio. But when he walked into the studio with a camera in hand at the age of 17, nobody knew who he was."
The Indian film industry, which has been growing at 18 per cent, sells over 3.6 billion tickets per annum, says Sabbas Joseph, founder director of Wizcraft International. Which means we sell about a billion more tickets than what Hollywood does. Despite the unorganised scale of business and lack of original screenplays.
As Sippy says, "The overseas market has definitely been growing well over the last 10-15 years. Now, we have a large Indian audience over there. An audience which has a lot of money power: the new generation Indians who have settled there for years, who like to be in touch with their roots. They are our big audiences. They have enough money to spend on things they love and, certainly, Indian cinema is one of them."
Is it important for the film industry to promote Hindi cinema to make Indian cinema more popular even when we have a vibrant regional cinema?
"Traditionally, in terms of audiences, Hindi cinema has a wider viewership. We know films from the South do tremendous business in India itself and probably outdo Hindi films a lot of times," says Sippy.
However, in IIFA's defence, he adds, "But, when IIFA started, it started as a platform to bring together the cinemas of the world and it takes time for any organisation to grow. If you start with too much, you may not be able to handle it. So you start with what you can handle and then you keep growing. And the natural part of that growth is we started screening Hindi films at Singapore (IIFA 2004). For the opening film, we had Yuva and the Tamil version screened together. And this year, we have 14 South Indian films."
The Indian film industry is slowly waking up to the potential of regional cinema. Especially with Rajnikanth's Chandramukhi breaking all records of Indian cinema, grossing $ 2.5 million overseas, having been released in Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia, South Africa, Mauritius, the Middle East, the U.K., France and the U.S. Chandramukhi will release in Japan in August, and be dubbed into German and Turkish in November for release in Germany, Switzerland, Turkey and Austria.
Is it then fair that stars are used to promote Indian cinema? "We also screen films like Hazaaron Khwaishien Aisi, Page 3, Iqbal and other critically acclaimed films in regional languages and not necessarily blockbusters. But, cinema is basically what is popular. What do you call popular? It is what a lot of people like. So it's bound to sound like it is totally commercial or star-based but it does include everything," says Sippy.
SUDHISH KAMATH
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