Day 24 – Q 5.Do you think regional cinema is under threat from mainstream Hindi film industry and Hollywood? What can be done to make regional cinema a popular medium? Discuss.

5. Do you think regional cinema is under threat from mainstream Hindi film industry and Hollywood? What can be done to make regional cinema a popular medium? Discuss. 

क्या आपको लगता है कि मुख्यधारा के हिंदी फिल्म उद्योग और हॉलीवुड से क्षेत्रीय सिनेमा खतरे में है? क्षेत्रीय सिनेमा को एक लोकप्रिय माध्यम बनाने के लिए क्या किया जा सकता है? चर्चा करें।

Introduction:

Globalization has had it effects not only on Indian Trade and Business but also on Indian Cinema Industry. Indian Regional Cinemas like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam has reached foreign shores and become hugely popular across globe.

Body:

Bollywood and Hollywood is seen as threat by regional cinema industry because:

• Investment: The Budget and Financial earnings of them are very huge and no way matchable by regional movies.
• Story and Script: The stories are easily relatable towards modern day youths and current lifestyle. They are very realistic than idealistic themes of other regional movies.
• Global coverage: Hollywood movies have global coverage due to its language. And Bollywood also has global coverage due to its artists coming from various parts of world, Hindi Native speakers and popularity even in far of places like Russia, Ukraine etc.
• Technology and Effects: Usage of technology, Visual effects, location etc. are far more impressing than regional cinemas.
• Promotion: The amount of Promotion undertaken by these industries sometimes exceed the actual budget of regional movies.

But the threat is only to certain limit:

• Market: Regional Cinema has its own niche market. Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam speakers are spread across continent which has helped regional cinema increase its foot print.
• Foreign acceptance: Tamil and Telugu movies have huge acceptance in countries like Japan, China, UAE etc. Especially the recent Bahubali gained huge response from China. Rajinikanth movies have wide fan base in Korea and japan.
• Scripts and Story: Regional Cinema has specific themes or regional issues related scripts or based on Mythological stories which has high acceptance from old generation or above 40 years.
• Talent: Regional Cinema sometimes have high talented actors and actress compared to Hollywood and Bollywood like Rajinikanth, Kamal Hassan, Raj Kumar etc.

What can be done to popularize Regional Cinema:

• Realistic scripts.
• Scripts based on modern lifestyle and Youth specific.
• Increased Investment.
• Use of high end Technology.
• Promotions.
• Digital Media presence Like Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.

Conclusion:

In recent times, Regional Movies are also catching up with their Bollywood counterpart with high budget movies and Very good scripts like Bahubali etc. which has been dubbed in several foreign languages. But still there is a long way to go before they can catch up.