This week Cameron Diaz found strange company at the Indian box office. Her fluffy, sugar-coated rom-com, What Happens in Vegas, was released in multiplexes alongside Christopher Zalla's intense debut film in Spanish, Padre Nuestro. A deeply humane tale about young Pedro, a Mexican immigrant searching for his father in industrial Brooklyn and finding his own identity getting claimed by another migrant, Padre Nuestro presents the usually "shining" New York in a markedly different, almost unrecognisable light—dirty, gritty, grimy, perverted, yet also a tender space for tenuous relationships to grow in and wither away.
Till a few months ago, Padre Nuestro would have been the kind of film you'd have managed to view only at a film club or an esoteric film festival. Or you might have clandestinely bought a pirated print from Delhi's Palika Bazaar. But world cinema has finally begun to cross these limits and find space in mainstream avenues—multiplexes, TV channels, and the legal home videos market.
"It's about democratisation. If I had been exposed to and cultivated a taste for world cinema, I felt others should be given a chance to enjoy it too," says Sunil Doshi of NDTV Lumiere. In the last few months, the company has been releasing movies from across the globe—from Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis to Bille August's Goodbye Bafana; from Nadine Labaki's Caramel to Claude Lelouch's Crossed Tracks. In association with Excel Home Videos, it launched a set of 10 DVDs this week comprising prized films like Fatih Akin's Head On, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates, Louis Malle classic Au Revoir Le Enfants (Goodbye Children) and Kim Ki Duk's Breath. With a library of 450 movies from 35 countries, it plans to launch a movie channel by the end of September and 10 home videos every month.
Zalla's intense debut film Padre Nuestro
"We feel that culture, no matter where it comes from, needs to be preserved. Our aim has been to build a repository, a reference source for world cinema," says Gautam Shiknis of Palador. First to kick off four years ago, the company has rights for 1,100 films, from master filmmakers like Bergman, Kieslowski, Wong Kar Wai to new names like Johnny To and the Pang Brothers. They brought in Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund's City of God to theatres last year, organised a festival of Bergman's films across the country and have been showcasing their films on the Sultans of Cinema, the Sunday 3 pm slot, on Zee Studio. They have plans to show two films a week in theatres beginning October, and are launching a channel by next February.
However, the first such channel to take off was in February this year. utv, with 650-odd titles in its kitty, launched World Movies channel, devoted exclusively to non-Hollywood cinema. "It would be the 16th niche channel in the Indian market, but we want this niche to grow, more competition to step in," says COO Dilshad Master.
About a month ago, Bharatbala Productions too made a foray into film distribution with an unlikely name—the German foreign film Oscar winner, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others. "We did it out of passion and necessity. We felt we needed to raise the bar for the kind of films we are getting exposed to," says Bharatbala. They intend showing three to four such films every year. Up next are movies from China and Brazil.
In India, the film market has been dominated by indigenous movies, with Hollywood taking up just about 5-7 per cent share of the market. World cinema has an even smaller pie. However, it has a loyal set of aficionados whose appetite as well as numbers have been growing. "There are enough people who crave films, literature, music that appeals to their intellect, but there is not enough being done to cater to their demands," says Shiknis. "Indians are travelling a lot, getting exposed to all cultures. If they want to eat Chinese, Japanese or Italian food, they would want to see movies from these countries as well," says Master.
Labaki's Caramel was a huge draw in India
There have been other economic factors at play—the niche channels are finding increasing space on the airwaves with the growth of the DTH platform, and home theatre prices are crumbling down, making it more accessible for people wanting to build their own movie libraries. The growth of multiplexes too is creating a definite space for alternative cinema. In such a scenario, The Lives of Others set new records. It ran in eight cinemas in Mumbai and Pune for three weeks at 80 per cent occupancy, unheard of till then. It ran for four weeks in Chennai and three weeks in Bangalore and is now set for release in Calcutta. Lumiere's Persepolis and Caramel too fetched about 70-80 per cent collections.
So we are getting to view films from the world over—from Lebanon to Turkey via Korea and Poland. But each player is trying to differentiate itself in the already small niche. World Movies is gunning for contemporary world cinema—not just great films but also those that have been big hits in their countries. "There are 3,000 films being made every year the world over and we don't even know of them. Our attempt is to give them a platform," says Master. They have started a series called 50 Movies to See Before you Die which presents movies handpicked by celebrated filmmakers like M. Night Shymalan, Mahesh Bhatt, Shyam Benegal and Anurag Kashyap.
A scene from Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys
Right now, the mood seems to be upbeat. Set up at a cost of Rs 35-40 crore, Lumiere is hoping to break even in the next 3-4 years. Palador saw an initial investment of US $5 million, hopes to post $6 million by the end of this fiscal, and about $20 million in 2009.
But there are many pitfalls that the players need to contend with. Cost of acquisition remains prohibitive, especially with the rise in the Euro and because of the high customs duty. Another glitch has been the limited number of theatres and inconvenient show timings. But the biggest culprit, perhaps, has been the Indian censorship system. What would be left of a film like Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris were it to go through the Indian censors before reaching the audience? No wonder film buffs still prefer to go for pirated films because they don't come butchered and hacked. "But the board is getting sensitised, they are beginning to understand the changing temperament" says Doshi. "The guidelines need to be discussed, debated and scrutinised," says Shiknis.
For now, the feast for cine-buffs is getting more appetising by the day. In the pipeline from Lumiere: Amos Gitai films and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys. Palador has lined up Martin Scorsese's documentary on the Rolling Stones, Shine A Light. World Movies will be showing this year's foreign film Oscar winner from Austria, as also the celebrated Israeli film Band's Visit. Time for Hollywood to take a short break.
