| |
CINEMA:
TOLLYWOOD
Guided By Feelings
|
|
|
| |
"Something
new is happening to Tollywood ... something good."
SUBRATA SEN, Director, Swapner Feriwala
|
Why the sudden interest
in Tollywood? "We're starved of good Bengali cinema out there,"
says Sutapa Ghosh of Cinemawalla. "The only films we get to see are
scratchy videotapes, duplicated ten times over." Arjoe's Bhattacherjee
has slightly different reasons: "I'm a Bengali and I feel the need
to do something for my home state, which is so rich in culture. But I
won't deny that it's a good business proposition too."
Bengali is the fifth most-spoken language in
the world, and NRI producers don't discount the huge Bangladeshi population
that lives abroad. According to Ghosh, for every 2,000 Bengalis in the
US metros, there are at least 5,000 Bangladeshis. "And they look
forward to Bengali films as eagerly as Pakistanis wait for Bollywood fare,"
she adds. The DVD market for Bengali films alone is estimated at $25,000
(Rs 11.75 lakh). Add to that TV channels and big-screen shows-another
$20,000 at least. It certainly makes financial sense. "Everyone wants
a bit of Tollywood now," says a Kolkata producer who came across
a professor, a surgeon and an owner of a chain of medical stores, who
were all keen to invest in Bengali films. The producer has drawn up a
list of 25 probable moneyspinners he will tap for subsequent tie-ups.
But then why now? There are many reasons why
the NRI gravy train arrived in Bengal long after it did in Mumbai. Here,
the producer is the last to get his money back. Distributors can market
the film without paying for territory rights. Hall owners can screen a
film without paying the distributor the mandatory guarantee money, and
even charge a fixed weekly rental. Added to this skewed risk distribution
are allegations of a powerful producer-distributor-booker cartel working
in the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association which zealously guards
its monopoly on film production and rights. Some well-known producers
are even known to encourage "joint ventures" with their Bangladeshi
counterparts, where they can split the cost of filmmaking and share the
prints.
In 1999, technicians went on an indefinite strike
to protest a growing trend where some producers were buying readymade
films from Bangladesh, adding a few scenes, dubbing and releasing it as
a new movie-at a third of the cost a new film would have implied. Expectedly,
these films with pejorative titles and semi-porn scenes give Tollywood
a bad name. "With NRI producers, all this will stop," says an
optimistic filmmaker, though he worries that outsiders may not be able
to break up the local cartel. "It's too early to call it a Tollywood
revival," says another young filmmaker cautiously. "But thanks
to the NRIs, we're getting there. At 24 frames a second." Motion
pictures are on the roll.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives
