MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY IN INDIA

With more than 600 television channels, 100 million pay-TV households, 70,000 newspapers and 1,000 films produced annually, India’s vibrant media and entertainment (M&E) industry provides attractive growth opportunities for global corporations. Enticed by economic liberalization and high volumes of consumption, many of the world’s media giants have been present in the Indian market for more than two decades. However, in recent years, with near double-digit annual growth and a fast-growing middle class, there has been a renewed surge in investments into the country by global companies. Media sectors, regarded as “sunset” industries in mature markets, are flourishing in India, presenting global media companies with exciting opportunities to counter declining revenues. For example, the newspaper industry, which is facing declining readership in many international markets because of digital media, continues to thrive in India, driven by increasing literacy rates and consumer spending as well as the growth of regional markets and specialty newspapers.

Newspapers account for 42% of all advertising spend in India, the highest in all media streams. India’s favourable regulatory environment and recent reforms are creating investment opportunities in a number of M&E sectors. Entry restrictions for foreign companies have been relaxed and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) caps have been recently increased in key sectors, including Direct-To-Home (DTH) and radio. Mandatory digitization of the country’s TV distribution infrastructure has spurred the growth of digital cable and DTH, and created the need for these companies to fund their expansion. The third round of radio license auctions (phase III), expected in the near future, is expected see radio networks adding around 700 radio stations across the country. Then, there are India’s diverse content markets. The bulk of the country’s urban consumption is from non-metro cities (the tier 2 and tier 3 towns) and comprises regional markets with distinct cultures, languages and content preferences. These markets, which are huge markets within markets, provide global M&E companies with a variety of opportunities to deliver localized content. Many global film studios and TV broadcasters have already entered these markets and are producing regional language content.

Finally, there is the evolution of consumption of digital content, which is at an inflection point in India. Although internet penetration is currently low in the country, the recent launch of 3G services and the eventual launch of 4G are expected to bring a late surge in wireless-based broadband adoption. In conjunction with India’s mobile phone user base of more than 750 million subscribers, the scale and impact of the country’s potential for digital content consumption is huge. This presents M&E companies, foreign and domestic, with an exciting opportunity to develop digital businesses that cater to a new generation of broadband users. While there are many opportunities to tap, there are also unique differences and challenges. Diverse content preferences and the low price point and high volumes of content consumption are some of the critical differences that global M&E companies need to assess when entering the Indian market. Companies that understand and adapt to the economic and social fabric of the country’s operating environment and that invest in tailored content and services are likely to maximize their success.

M&E companies operating in India continue to be exposed to risks ranging from local competition to fraud, corruption and piracy. Furthermore, although the development of corporate governance norms and ongoing structural and regulatory reforms are expected to mitigate these threats, global M&E companies need to develop flexible business plans, and identify and develop mitigation strategies for key risks.

FILMED ENTERTAINMENT

Bollywood, as the Hindi film industry is popularly known, is the largest contributor to the industry’s revenue, followed by the South Indian movie industry and other language cinema industries such as Bengali, Bhojpuri, Marathi and Gujarati. Although the country’s filmed entertainment industry is the largest in the world in terms of the number of films it produces (around 900) and its theatrical admissions (around 3 billion), it continues to be small in size in terms of revenue, mainly due to low ticket realization and occupancy levels. Moreover, lack of quality content and rising competition from Hollywood films continue to affect it.

Key trends• Emergence of new sources of revenue: Although revenues from the theatre segment constitute around 60% of the overall revenue generated for a movie, other revenue streams have begun to make a meaningful contribution. The trend of pre-selling satellite and home-video rights gained momentum in 2010, and has enabled producers to de-risk their business models. Even films that are due for release in 2012 are witnessing negotiation for satellite and new media rights.

Revenue from new media, including mobile and online rights, is expected to increase after the recent introduction of 3G services by mobile operators. In addition, film production houses have the opportunity to monetize their content through gaming on mobile and online platforms. New sources of revenue will reduce a movie’s dependence on its theatrical performance for it to achieve success and is expected to enable fuller exploitation of content.

• Collaboration with international studios: International film studios such as Warner Bros., Disney, Fox and Dreamworks have entered collaborations with local film production houses to develop Hindi and regional movies. Walt Disney, who earlier held a 50% stake in UTV, has now acquired a controlling stake in UTV Software Communications2. Viacom18 has also entered a deal with global movie company Paramount Pictures to market and distribute the latter’s movies in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It has already ventured into production of Hindi language movies, and the new deal is expected to help it create a distribution network3. Local film production can leverage the experience of these international studios to expand their international reach and incorporate enhanced project planning and cost controls. A case in point is My Name is Khan, which was distributed in unexplored markets, with innovations such as taking the lead actorsto the NASDAQ stock exchange. The success of the movie demonstrates the potential of Indian films abroad.

• Rise of 3D cinema: 3D was a prominent theme in 2010 and has amply demonstrated its significant potential with benefits such as enhanced audience engagement, increased ticket prices and the exclusivity of the medium, i.e, the theaters. The success of Avatar has taken 3D movie-making to new heights. Multiplexes could look at the feasibility of investing larger amounts on 3D screens to meet the growing demand to view 3D. Last year, the Bollywood film Ramayana, was also released in 3D. Therefore, a new window of opportunity could open if Bollywood is able to produce high quality 3D content. Releasing movies with spectacular special effects, such as in Avatar, could be the answer to bringing people back to the theater. Rajnikanth’s forthcoming movie ‘Kochadiyaan’ may set the stage for motion capture technique based movies

in India.

• Rationalizing the movie slate: In line with the global trend, Indian movie production houses have cut down on the number of movies they release every year, mainly due to rising movie production costs, which is leading to difficulties in securing funding for projects. The

year 2010 witnessed the release of around 150 Bollywood films, as compared to the earlier average of 300 films per year. The movie business has been hard hit and production houses would do well to reduce volatility in their revenues by producing varied budget films within different genres. A shift toward a portfolio approach for movies with small, medium and large budgets is a positive development in the sector.

• Resurgence of regional cinema: While Bollywood has continued to rule the filmed entertainment market, of late, regional cinema has been witnessing a surge in investments from major film studios to tap the potential of underpenetrated markets. This segment, which is dominated by South Indian cinema, has pushed the boundaries with the main growth being witnessed in Marathi, Punjabi, Bhojpuri and Bengali cinema. In December 2009, DAR Capital, an asset management company, earmarked INR1.5 to 2 billion to fund regional cinema projects over the next three years. Richer content, to cater to the preferences of local audiences, as well as the increasing uptake of such movies by mainstream audiences, has attracted studios such as Eros, Disney and reliance to regional cinema. Studios are also releasing dubbed versions of popular Hollywood films, while multiplexes are increasing their number of shows of regional movies. The significantly untapped potential of regional cinema provides studios with the logical option of entering this market to help them diversify their portfolios from a Bollywood-heavy one.

• Focus on niche movies: The recent success of small budget, niche movies such as No One Killed Jessica, Peepli Live, Well Done Abba and Dhobi Ghat has re-emphasized the importance of content-driven films. While these movies are produced on tight budgets, strong content and word-of-mouth marketing can bring high returns to studios. The success of such movies has at best been patchy over recent years, but a few failures should not deter industry players from backing good scripts with requisite funding. In addition, refined audience tastes and the advent of miniplexes to cater to the tastes of targeted audiences is likely to drive the production of more such

movies, which is in sync with the portfolio approach adopted of late by studios.

• Advent of digital cinema and the growth of multiplexes: The growth of multiplexes has improved the movie-going experience for Indian audiences and has led to increased per-ticket realization. Rising urbanization and growing disposable incomes are also driving increased investments in multiplexes. In addition, theatres with low seating capacities allow cost-effective screening of movies that are targeted at niche audiences. Companies such as Real Image and UFO Moviez have facilitated digitization of movies, which curbs piracy and enables increased release of films across the country — a game-changing phenomenon whereby 60% of box-office collections are realized in the first week of release of a movie. Thereby, a big-budget Hindi movie, which would have been released earlier with 400–500 prints, now enjoys a wider release with almost 1,000–1,500 prints being distributed. However, there is still further ground to be covered. The average number of screens per million in India is 12, as compared to the global average of 54. The number of multiplex screens in India is expected to increase from 1,000 in 2010 to around 1,405 by 2013.

The size of the country is matched by a longstanding love affair with cinema which creates the world’s biggest film audience. Even though India was controlled by the British until 1947, this did not prevent the development of ‘industrial’ film production in several Indian cities, so that by the late 1930s an Indian ‘studio system’ was in place. By the late 1990s, India had overtaken Japan and America as the producer of the largest number of feature films per year (800-1,000) and with an annual audience of over 3 billion at home and millions more overseas, it can also claim to be the most popular. All of this is not disputed, but when we come to look at the films themselves and who watches them, it gets more complicated. India is now famous for its computer software engineers and it has always been known for its bureaucracies (needed to organise the world’s largest democracy), but the film industry in India is only slowly beginning to deliver the detailed box office information on a regular basis that business commentators and film scholars in the UK and North America have come to expect from their own industries. There are rapid changes taking place in the Indian entertainment business with modern multiplexes appearing in big cities – but also many traditional cinemas in small towns in rural areas which do not have the industry infrastructure to make data collection straightforward. So, we must be circumspect in trying to describe the industry as it exists now – and we must recognise that it is changing all the time.

One way to think about Indian Cinema is to distinguish four categories (but note that these all overlap and the boundaries between them are not fixed):

• Popular Hindi Cinema

• Regional cinemas

• ‘Art’ or ‘specialised’ cinema

• Diaspora cinema (films made by Indian filmmakers based overseas)

We can best understand the importance of these classifications by making two simple distinctions. The first is between ‘popular’ and ‘art’ cinema. The massive popular audience in India is hungry for cheap entertainment and this is what cinema has provided. This audience, which includes a significant proportion of people with limited access to education, enjoys universal genres such as action, comedy and melodrama and more specifically ‘Indian’ stories with spiritual/mythological themes. The typical Indian film as viewed from outside the country may well be a three hour spectacular ‘multi-genre’ film with six or seven extended elaborately choreographed and costumed musical sequences. But there is also an Indian audience for more ‘serious’ film narratives, akin to European, Japanese and American ‘art’ cinema and indeed to more adventurous Hollywood films. This audience is relatively small, but because the overall audience is so large, even a small proportion means significant numbers. It tends to be an audience concentrated in the major cities, especially in the two states with the greatest cultural traditions, West Bengal and Kerala, and in the centres for higher education and new technologies in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc. For many years from the 1950s to the 1980s, it was the Bengali art film director Satyajit Ray who represented Indian Cinema to the outside world. In the 1970s Indian Cinema developed a more socially aware and more politically orientated form of cinema, partly subsidised by public funding, which was known as Parallel Cinema – running alongside but clearly distinguished from mainstream cinema. Since the 1990s and the opening up of the Indian market to private investors at home

and overseas, this political cinema has gone into decline, but to some extent the tradition of ‘socially aware’ films has been supported by Indian filmmakers such as Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta who have returned to India to make films using their training and experience gained in North America (respectively the US and Canada). This ‘Diaspora cinema’, often, but not always, means art cinema.

The second distinction (which cuts across the first) is between Hindi Cinema and Regional Cinemas. Hindi is the official language of the Union of India. However only around 40% of Indians actually speak Hindi. In the North of India, variations of Hindi are spoken as a first language by the population of several states around Delhi. Other North Indians whose first language might be Gujarati, Punjabi, and Bengali etc. can also access Hindi films, as can Urdu speakers in Pakistan. All these languages are part of the same Indo-European group. But in the South of India, the language family is completely different and Tamils in particular have in the past objected very strongly to the suggestion that Hindi should be the only official language of the country. As a result, English has been retained as India’s second official language and in the South; the different regional language cinemas have the support of the mass of the population. Hindi Cinema in the South is only accessible by the more educated part of the population and Hindi films are distributed in a similar way to Hollywood films – i.e. available only in a minority of cinemas.

To give you a sense of the range of films made in India, here is a breakdown of films in different languages for 2003 (the latest data available) taken from the website of the Central Board of Film

Hindi: 222

Tamil: 151

Telugu: 155

Kannada: 109

Malayalam: 64

Bengali: 49

Marathi: 25

English: 23

Assamese: 17

Others: 62

Total: 877

The four Southern film industries in Tamil Nadu, Andrha Pradesh (Telugu), Karnataka (Kannada) and Kerala (Malayalam) produce more than half the total number of Indian films. This isn’t surprising because the South has more cinemas and a higher per capita cinema attendance than the North.

Bollywood is much like Hollywood in the number of films it produces – around 200 per year (i.e. the main component in the Hindi total above). It is also like Hollywood in that its films tend to have the highest media profiles, sometimes the biggest budgets and stars and a reputation for ‘modern’ entertainment values. The crucial difference between Bollywood and its regional competitors is that Bollywood has created an artificial culture that appeals to a specific audience found across India – whereas the regional cinemas are firmly rooted in their own language and culture. It wasn’t always the case that the big budget Hindi films (originally produced in studios in Calcutta and Pune as well as Bombay) were divorced from Indian Cinema4social reality. Indeed, the ‘social film’ was once an important genre. It was the success of big action pictures such as Sholay (1975) that started the trend towards multi-genre pictures, which increasingly began to draw on Western modes of presentation. In 1998 the very successful Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was described by some critics as being influenced by MTV and Western youth culture references. This trend towards a less social realistic cinema and one more associated with consumerist fantasy was also associated with the rise of the NRI (Non-Resident Indian) audience in the UK and North America. This audience is able to pay much higher ticket prices than those in India (where some tickets are still below 50p) and this income from exports helps Bollywood producers to offset box-office flops at home. The

export of films has been a feature of Indian Cinema for a long time. Indian films have been shown in the UK since the late 1940s and by the 1970s there was a circuit of cinemas regularly showing Hindi films in the UK to eager audiences (see Tyrell 1998). This market then transferred to video until the return of Hindi films in UK multiplexes in the 1990s. In Africa, the Middle East and many other territories, Hindi films have long competed with Hollywood and Hong Kong for popular audiences. This has usually meant low ticket prices, but here too there is a move towards higher prices in newer cinemas where an NRI audience might exist (e.g. in Kenya, South Africa and the Gulf States).The ‘artificiality’ of Bollywood is partly to do with its production practices. Its films are made in Hindi in Mumbai where the local language is Marathi and where there is also a Marathi regional cinema industry. Spectacular dance sequences are often filmed in ‘exotic’ locations that are beautiful or famous, rather than because the location has any relevance in the narrative. So the locations may be in any part of India, the pyramids in Egypt, Mauritius, Switzerland, Scotland and, increasingly now, London. NRI audiences are now coming to terms with representations of London that appear strange to UK audiences. More importantly perhaps Bollywood films have tended not to specify where a story is set or to refer directly to Indian politics or religious/cultural differences. This way they are more escapist and less potentially disturbing.

The 1930s and 40sWhile addressing social differences of caste, class and the relations between the sexes, the "social" films of the 1930s adopted a modernist outlook in an essentially converging of society. Many directors of the time showed great innovation. The Marathi director, V Shantaram, for example, was alert to world trends in film-making, deploying expressionist effects intelligently in such works as Amrit Manthan (Prabhat Talkies; 1934).

In what was probably the most important film of the period, Devdas (1935), the director Pramathesh Barua created a startlingly edited climax to a tale of love frustrated by social distinction and masculine ineffectuality. Released in Bengali, Hindi and Tamil, Devdas created an oddly ambivalent hero for this period (and again, through a Hindi remake directed by Bimal Roy in 1955), predicated on indecision, frustration and a focus on failure and longing rather than on achievement.

By the 1940s the social film further delimited its focus by excluding particularly fraught issues, especially of caste division. A representative example, prefiguring the kind of entertainment extravaganza that has become the hallmark of the Bombay film, was Kismet/Fate (Gyan Mukerji; Bombay Talkies, 1943), which broke all box-office records and ran for more than two years. Family and class become the key issues in the representation of society, and the story's location is an indeterminate urban one.

Although this became the model for popular cinema, especially after the decline of regional industries in Maharashtra and Bengal by the end of the 1940s, different strains are observable in the Tamil films of the same period. In the 1930s, the Tamil cinema gained national recognition with the costume extravaganza, Chandralekha; directed by SS Vasan for Gemini studios, and called by its director a "pageant for our peasants" (a large section of the audience would have been illiterate). Its story, of the conflict for the inheritance of an empire, is

laden with overblown set-pieces and crowds of extras. Even more significant than this investment in the spectacular was its "Tamil-ness", the recognition of a national existence different to that portrayed in the Bombay output.

The 1950sBy the start of the 1950s, Calcutta became the vanguard of the art cinema, with the emergence of the film society movement at the end of the 1940s and Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali/Song of the Road, produced with West Bengal state government support in 1955. Post-independence, despite a relatively sympathetic government enquiry in 1951, the industry became the object of considerable moral scrutiny and criticism, and was subject to severe taxation. A covert consensus emerged between proponents of art cinema and the state, all focussing on the imperative to create a "better" cinema. The Film and Television Institute of India was established at Pune in 1959 to develop technical skills for an industry seen to be lacking in this field. However, active support for parallel cinema, as it came to be called, only really took off at the end of the 1960s, under the aegis of the government's Film Finance Corporation, set up in 1961 to support new film-makers.

Ironically, this pressure and vocal criticism occurred at a time when arguably some of the most interesting work in popular cinema was being produced. Radical cultural organizations, loosely associated with the Indian Communist Party, had organized themselves as the All India Progressive Writers Association and the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). The latter had produced Dharti ke Lal/Sons of the Soil (KA Abbas; 1943) and its impact on the industry can be seen in the work of radical writers such as Abbas, lyricists such as Sahir Ludhianvi, and directors such as Bimal Roy and Zia Sarhady.

In addition, directors such as Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt and Mehboob Khan, while not directly involved with IPTA, created films that reflected a passionate concern for questions of social justice. Largely studio-based, the films of this era nevertheless incorporated vivid stylistic experimentation, influenced by international currents in film-making. Such effects are evident in Awara/The Vagabond (Raj Kapoor, 1951, script by KA Abbas), Awaaz/The Call (Zia Sarhady; 1956) and Pyaasa/Craving (Guru Dutt; 1957).

The First International Film Festival, held in Bombay in 1951, showed Italian works for the first time in India. The influence of Neorealism can be seen in films such as Do Bigha Zamin/Two Measures of Land (Bimal Roy, 1953), a portrait of father and son eking out a living in Calcutta that strongly echoes the narrative of Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thief (1948). Mehboob Khan's Andaz/Style (1949), an upperclass love triangle founded on a tragic misunderstanding, draws on codes of psychological representation - hallucinations and dreams that feature strongly in 1940s Hollywood melodrama. Mehboob's tendency to make a visual spectacle of his material, and hisinvolvement with populist themes and issues make him a good example of popular cinema of the time.

The Art CinemaIndia's emergent art cinema, led by the Bengali directors Ray, Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak reacted against such spectacle. Satyajit RaySatyajit Ray's world-famous debut, Pather Panchali (1955), is based on many of the themes that engaged contemporary popular film-makers of the time, such as loss of social status, economic injustice, uprootment, but sets them within a naturalistic, realist frame which put a special value on the Bengali countryside, locating it as a place of nostalgia, to which the urban and individualist sensibility of its protagonist, Apu, looked with longing.

In Ray's later work on urban middle-class existence, Mahanagar/Big City (1963), Charulata (1964), Seemabadha/Company Limited (1971), Pratidwandi/The Protagonist (1970), and Jana Aranya/The Middleman (1975), his rational, humanist vision is at the same time at home in the city, and repulsed by it; overarching estrangement is relayed through images of futile job interviews, cynical corporate schemes, murky deals in respectable cafes. Wedded to the traditions of the nineteenth-century intelligentsia, he finds society wanting, vilifies it for its ignorance and corruption, and oversees the malignant terrain below with a lofty disdain. Ray's women, such as the mother, Sarbojaya of Pather Panchali, the tomboy Aparna Sen of Samapti/TheEnd(1961), Madhabi Mukherjee in Charulata and Mahanagar, and Kaberi Bose in Aranyer din Ratri, are splendidly drawn portraits in the realist tradition.

In contrast to Ray, his contemporaries Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak set out to expose the dark underside of India's lower middle-class and unemployed. Sen, after a phase of uneven, didactic political cinema at the height of the Maoist-inspired Naxalite movement of the early 1970s - marked by the trilogy Interview(1971), Calcutta 71(1972) and Padatik/The Guerrilla Fighter (1973) - made two films, Akaler Sandhane/Search of Famine (1980) and Khandar/Ruins (1983), about film-making itself, exploring its inherent distance and disengagement, and the problems entailed in trying to record "reality".

Perhaps the most outstanding figure of this generation, fulfilling the potential of the radical cultural initiatives of the IPTA, was the great Ritwik Ghatak. Disruption, the problems of locating oneself in a new environment, and the indignities and oppression of common people are the recurrent themes of this poet of Partition, who lamented the division of Bengal in 1947. Disharmony anddiscontinuity could be said to be the hallmark of Nagarik/Citizen (1952) and Meghe Dhaka Tara/Cloud-capped Star (1960), where studio sets of street corners mingle uneasily with live-action shots of Calcutta. There is something deliberately jarring about the rhythms of editing, the use of sound, and the compositions, as if the director refuses to allow us to settle into a

comfortable, familiar frame of viewing. In Aajantrik/Man and Machine (1958) and Subarnarekha (1952, released 1965) he juxtaposes the displaced and transient urban figure with tribal peoples; placing the human figure at the edge of the frame, dwarfed by majestic nature.

THE INDIAN POPULAR CINEMA

&

THE SUPERSTARS

During the 1960s, popular cinema had shifted its social concerns towards more romantic genres, showcasing such new stars as Shammi Kapoor - a kind of Indian Elvis - and later, Rajesh Khanna, a soft, romantic hero. The period is also notable for a more assertive Indian nationalism. Following the Indo-Pakistan wars of 1962 and 1965, the Indian officer came to be a rallying point for the national imagination in films such as Sangam/Meeting of Hearts (Raj Kapoor, 1964) and Aradhana/Adoration (Shakti Samanta; 1969).

Amitabh BacchanHowever, the political and economic upheaval of the following decade saw a return to social questions across the board, in both the art and popular cinemas. The accepted turning point in the popular film was the angry, violent Zanjeer/The Chain (Prakash Mehra; 1973), which fed into the anxieties and frustrations generated by the quickening but lopsided pace of industrialization and urbanization. Establishing Amitabh Bachchan as the biggest star of the next decade, its policeman hero is ousted from service through a conspiracy, and takes the law into his own hands to render justice and to avenge his deceased parents.

The considerable political turmoil of the next few years, including the railway strike of 1974 and the Nav Nirman movement led by JP Narayan in Bihar and Gujarat, ultimately led to the declaration of Indira Gandhi's Emergency in 1975. It was as if the state and the

people had split apart. As the cities grew, so did the audiences. The popular cinema generated an ambiguous figure to express this alienation. At the level of images, there was a greater investment in the stresses of everyday life and, unlike the 1950s, in location shooting. In Zanjeer, the casual killing of a witness on Bombay's commuter trains conjures up the perils of life in the metropolis. This is echoed in images of the dockyard, taxi-rank, railtrack and construction site in Deewar/The Wall (Yash Chopra; 1975), also starring Amitabh Bachchan.

The recurrent narrative of these films, of protagonists uprooted from small town and rural families to the perils of the city, is shared by the street children researched by professional sociologists in Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (1988). The Bombay films' very excesses, their grand gestures, and the priority given to emotion and excitement may more truly reflect the dominant rhythms of urban life in India. At the level of plot and character, however, the Bombay films simultaneously simplify and collapse our sense of India, reducing the enormous variety of identity - social, regional, ethnic and religious - that makes up Indian society. Where these identities appear, they do so as caricatures and objects of fun.

THE ART CINEMA OF THE 80s

Shabana AzmiTo counter this, the art cinema of the 1980s diversified from its Bengali moorings of the earlier period under the aegis of the Film Finance Corporation. Works by Shyam Benegal, Gautam Ghose, Saeed Mirza, BV Karanth, Girish Kasaravaili, Mrinal Sen, MS Sathyu, Ray, and Kundan Shah, among others, actively addressed questions of social injustice: problems of landlord exploitation, bonded labour, untouchability, urban power, corruption and criminal extortion, the oppression of women, and political manipulation. Ghatak in particular had addressed many of these issues earlier, but

never had there been such an outpouring of the social conscience, nor such a flowing of new images - of regional landscapes, cultures, and social structures. Many of the films may seem didactic and uncomplex, undercutting the attention to form that had marked the earlier period - but not all. Benegal's first two films indicate an unusual concern with the psychology of domination and subordination.Ankur/The Seedling (1974), starring Shabana Azmi, is particularly striking not only for this but also for the open, fluid way it captures the countryside. Among Kannada directors, working in south India, Kasaravalli in Ghattashradha (1981) effected an intimate vision of the oppression of widows through the view of a child. And special mention must be made of Kundan Shah's Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron/Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (1984), a wonderful exercise in farce and slapstick that is also a brilliant portrait of Bombay.

THE SOUTHThe most notable of the directors who speak specifically about their own cultures, and about the possibilities of change, are Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aravindan from Kerala. A key to their productivity was the overall development of film culture in Kerala, India's most literate state. In his films Gopalakrishnan transformed the lush countryside, busy towns and animated culture of Kerala into a strange, dissociated place, fraught with communicative gaps, menacing, inexplicable characters, and an overall sense of the impenetrable. Subjects range from the mounting tragedies that beset a young couple in the city (Swayamvaram/One's Own Choice; 1972), and the effete authoritarianism of a declining feudal landlord (Elippathayam/The Rat-Trap; 1984), to the mysterious spiritual decline of a popular communist activist (Mukha Mukham/Face to Face; 1987).

The late Aravindan, sometime cartoonist and employee of the Kerala Rubber Board, had something of the mystic in him, but went through a range of styles, including a cinemaverite approach, as in Thampu/The Circus Tent (1978), in which circus performers speak direct to the camera. His episode from the Ramayana, Kanchana Sita/Golden Sita, places the action against the grain of the high Hindu tradition by situating it among tribes in the verdant landscape of the Kerala forests. At his best, his narrative style refuses a didactic approach, generating a whimsical sense of how destinies are shaped.

CONTEMPORARY INDIAN CINEMAIn the 1990s, video, national and satellite/cable television have resulted in the development of a prolonged crisis in India’s movie industry, where commercial and art films are equally at risk of failing at the box office. The problems of the latter are mainly due to a persistent failure to find distribution outlets. Now, more and more film-makers of both streams look to television. The state film finance unit (now named the National Film Development Corporation) has a major stake in the expansion of the national network.

There have been two responses to this crisis. The first, at the economic level, has been to try and curb film piracy, and to systematize the relationship of film to video. The second is an investment in new technology, and in new forms of story-telling. The Telugu and Tamil industries, and directors such as Ram Gopal Varma and Mani Ratnam, are at the forefront of such moves, showing a lively interest in new techniques in American cinema. Varma's Shiva (1990) and Raat/Night (1991) showcase the use of steadicam - in the latter, to the exclusion of any serious narrative. The technical virtuosity of Mani Ratnam's works as well as theirelegant story-telling and restrained performances have attracted a following among film buffs across the country, who identify with his style and, implicitly, with the image of a dynamic, modern identity. In 1993, Ratnam made an important breakthrough with Roja, a love story about a young Tamil peasant woman and her husband, a cryptographer who decodes messages for military intelligence. The couple are transported to Kashmir, which is subject to sustained separatist extremism. Embroiling the Tamil couple in a national issue that might have seemed remote to an earlier generation, the film identified a new pan-Indian field of interest. Dubbed into Hindi, it was a national success, giving rise to the dubbing of a number of southern films.

INDIA’S 10 GREATEST FILMS

 Meghe Dhaka Tara   (1960, Bengali), directed by Ritwik Ghatak

 Charulata   (1964, Bengali), directed by Satyajit Ray

 Pather Panchali   (1955, Bengali), directed by Satyajit Ray

 Sholay   (1975, Hindi), directed by Ramesh Sippy

 Do Bigha Zameen   (1953, Hindi), directed by Bimal Roy

 Pyaasa   (1957, Hindi), directed by Guru Dutt

 Bhuvan Shome   (1969, Hindi), directed by Mrinal Sen

 Garam Hawa   (1973, Urdu), directed by MS Sathyu

 Mother India   (1957, Hindi), directed by Mehboob Khan

 Ghatashraddha   (1973, Kannada), directed by Girish Kasaravalli

INDIAN FILM INDUSTRYGOING GLOBAL

Globalisation has four aspects, namely, movement of goods, capital, technology and people across borders. In terms of movement of goods (i. e., movies) Indian movie industry has a long history of presence in the international market. Awara sent the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc countries crazy in the 1950s. Mehboob’s Aan had a French release after its premiere in London. Long before that Himansu Rai made visually stunning films in cooperation with the Germans in the early 1930s, like The Light of Asia and A Throw of Dice, and many more which were shown in Europe as Indian films with Indian stories. By then the Bombay film industry had been around for 35 years. The industry is as old as the cinema itself and certainly older than Hollywood, which has its beginnings in the late 1900s (Desai 2007).Indian movie exports have grown for around 60% recently. The USA and Canada are two major export destinations accounting for 30 percent followed by the UK with 25% and Mauritius and Dubai with 10% each. Other major markets include South Africa, Russia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia where there is numerous Indian Diaspora present. Making a film for the diaspora market is a sure moneymaking venture if compared to filming for the Indian domestic market (Desai 2007).With the international audience, there is notable acceptance of Indian movie themes combined with some of the cross-over movies made by international movie production houses. The earnings of these movies can be compared to some of the Hollywood box office hits. Some Bollywood movies have made more than 50% of their overall gross profit margin from international box office collection.This is a welcome trend which needs to be kept. One of the critical success factors for these movies is to identify ideas from within the Indian themes which appeal to the audience. The other critical success factor is to tie up with a leading international distributor; movies made by people of Indian origin have had up to 2–3 times higher international revenues in comparison to the national bestsellers (cii-

A.T. Kearney 2007). Table 2 shows a list of cross over films and the revenue generated by these films.India has announced ambitious plans to double its share in the global film industry by the end of this year. This signals the country’s determination to establish itself as a cultural as well as economic powerhouse. There are numerous reasons why we should believe that.Firstly, the government, which intends on using Bollywood to build up India as a ‘soft power’, believes the Indian film industry is capable of capturing five percent of the global market this year. The share is now at two percent (Johnson 2007). Kishore Lulla, the chief executive of Eros International, a uk-listed company that releases about thirty new Bollywood films in India and in the rest of the world each year, says the government’s target can be achieved. India is experiencing almost hundred percent growth in grosses, which is unheard Crossover film collectionsMOVIE COST Gross revenues (usd million) uk us Others TotalMonsoon Wedding 1.50 3.20 13.90 12.90 30.00Bend it Like Beckham 5.60 3.20 — 23.80 27.00East is East 4.50 — 4.10 21.70 25.80The Guru 6.00 9.80 — 1.40 11.20Anita and Me 4.00 2.80 — — 2.80American Desi 0.75 0.46 0.90 0.01 0.90My Son The Fanatic 3.00 0.21 0.41 0.02 0.60Mystic Massseur 2.50 0.06 0.40 — 0.46The Warrior 3.20 0.21 — — 0.20Bandit Queen 0.75 0.44 0.29 0.15 0.88Total 31.80 20.38 20.00 59.58 99.84

Source Indiantelevision.com Team 2003.

Of, says Mr Lulla, pointing to his plans for releasing Salaam-e-Ishq(Salute to Love), a star-studded feature, with thousand prints worldwide, seventy percent of which are intended for the Indian market. ‘That’s a record’ (Johnson 2007).Secondly, in terms of capital, the Indian Hindi movie industry keeps receiving capital from abroad. For example, Indian film companies like Eros, Adlabs, India Film Company and utv have raised hundreds

of millions of pounds from hungry institutional investors on the aim facility of the London Stock Exchange. Western film companies are taking a significant equity share in these companies (Desai 2007). On January 24, 2005 Percept Picture Company joined hands withMichael Douglas’ production company Further Films and Sahara One to co-produce the $50 million Racing the Monsoon. On September1 Percept Picture announced another tie-up with Sahara and the Hollywood producer Donald Rosenfeld for Tree of Life starring Colin Farrell. The two films are among a total of six Hollywood co-productions (Kohli-Khandekar 2006).Thirdly, in terms of technology, the Indian Hindi movie industry has therefore started with the import of technology from abroad as shown in table 1. For the past few years numerous Indian producers have been using special effects technology and training from abroad, particularly from Hollywood.Last but not least, India has made significant progress in terms of cast as well. Hindi movies have now more and more Hindi movie stars and other people working on international movies, particularly in Hollywood, whereas more and more artists from aboard work for the Indian movie industry.

Globalization ChallengesBollywood is facing a number of challenges in the process of globalization. Small and fragmented market is a big issue. To unlock Bollywood’s potential and crack open global markets, production, distribution and retail need to function in unison with the market. If we contrast India with China, the latter does not even have a potential.Despite continuing loses, box office revenues that are one-fifth of India’s and quotas on imports, Hollywood is full of enthusiasm forChina. In 2005 it invested another usd150m into the film business in

China. The money mostly went into film making and building film retail infrastructure in China. This is because the Chinese film market remains, in spite of all its problems, an easier, more organized market if compared to India. Only by increasing local market share Indian companies will be able to make their market attractive, report profit gain to investors and gain the heft needed to enter global markets (Kohli-Khandekar 2006).Domestic and diaspora markets are too large for Indian cinema to adapt themselves to Western tastes. There are also the Third World markets, however, the real money lies in rich oecd countries. Hollywood nowadays commands between 80 and 90% of the global cinema market. Bollywood has to change its act if it is to enter (or even wishes to enter) this large market. One point Bollywood should immediately consider is the length of a film. Indeed Bollywood films are too long. Even the best films are 20 to 30 minutes too long. Making entertaining films in 110–120 minutes seems to be beyond the reach of most Bollywood producers. It is just not their style. In addition to this the scripts are too loose and have too much excess fat (Desai 2007).

CONCLUSIONBollywood has made a lot of progress in the recent years, particularly after having been given the Industry status. There is a huge Indian diaspora in countries like the UK, Canada, the Middle East, South Africa which all represent a big market for Indian films. This is also the time when Indian economy is booming and as in consequence India is viewed in a positive way by other countries. Brand India is gradually gaining share in the global market. However, Bollywood’s share in the global movie market is still relatively insignificant and

the movie industry therefore needs to put in a lot of effort and money in distribution and marketing in particular if it wants to succeed in the global market.This report on the Indian Film Industry is an initial attempt to generate overall understanding of the development and globalization of the industry.