IS THE GLOBALISATION OF INDIAN CINEMA HELPING THE INDIAN ENTERTAINEMENT INDUSTRIES

Indian cinema has not gone global overnight. Indian cinema has been inspired by Western Film Industry since its early days. The first feature film of India, "Raja Harishchandra", was made by Dadasaheb Phalke because he was moved watching the film "Life of Christ" at P.B.Mehta's American-Indian Cinema.

Raj Kapoor’s “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. Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali" - a bengali film, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes festival in the year 1955. Year 1982 marked the historic "Gandhi" by Sir Richard Attenborough that swept away 8 Academy Awards including the award for Best Costume Design that went to Bhanu Athaiya who became the first Indian to win an Oscar. "Gandhi" was probably the first international co-production of India and UK. Satyaji Ray won an honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in the year 1992.

In recent days, after the mild success of “Lagaan” and “Bride and Prejudice”, we have seen the growth of interest for Indian cinema in the Western World. As Western audiences for Indian cinema grow, Western producers are funding maverick Indian filmmakers like Gurinder Chadha (Bride and Prejudice) and Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding). Both Chadha and Nair are of Indian origin but do not live in India, and who made their names in Western independent films; they have now been funded to create films that "interpret" the Indian cinematic tradition for Westerners. A similar filmmaker is Deepa Mehta of Canada, whose films include the trilogy Fire, Earth and Water.

Indian cinema has also influenced the English and American musical; Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (2001) incorporated a Bollywood-style dance sequence; The Guru and The 40-Year-Old Virgin featured Indian-style song-and-dance sequences; A. R. Rahman, who won two oscars for his legendary "Jai Ho" in the movie Slumdog Millionnaire in the year 2009, was recruited for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams; and a musical version of Hum Aapke Hain Koun has played in London's West End.

The most recent act of globalization in this industry was when Shahrukh Khan’s “My Name Is Khan” was bought by Fox Star Entertainment for a whopping 1 Billion INR. This film debuted in Abu Dhabi, UAE on 10 February 2010. It released globally in theaters on 12 February 2010, and was also be screened as part of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival's Official Selection.

So, in my opinion, globalization has given the power to Indian Cinema to grow beyond boundaries and take Brand India to the global market. It is because of this, that today, 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.

Globalization is a tool,which  favors the capitalistic conglomerates .

Commercial cinema.... is yet another subisadary of the media conglomerates...

hell yeah! it favours them, to standardize the population... again and again and again.

The biggest advantage that has happened due to globalisation of our film industry is the term called destination marketing.

Tourism flourishes making it possible for local talent to showcase their talent and make money for foreign tourists here in India. Hotels flourish and these hotels employ the local taent for their gala nights etc. In short globalisation in cinema helps the world come closer and become merrier and happier!! Entertainment obvisously gets priority!!

Thanks for the referral Meena :)

I think Ms. Meena is right indirectly our country is only going to get profit in the international market sp globalization is necessary

yes it is beyond any doubt globalization has pushed entertainment to a dizzy height. Not only Rajani movies are very popular in Japan but has fanclubs too.

Hi Sudhir, interesting debate. 

In my opinion the globalization of Indian cinemas are helping the entertainment industry to a larger extent. For example the movie slumdog millionaire which is a massive hit has brought pride and value for the Indian film Industry. This is really helping the entertainment sector to grow and we get more demand in the global market. We get used to many new technologies and techniques to develop our industry. So it is helping us to grow.

:)