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It will require a
bunch of hits for the nascent Himachal Pradesh film industry to
attract cinema buffs to the movie theatres and the quality of films
may improve as competition increases,
FOR those fed up with an overdose of Bollywood masala, the first lot of nearly a dozen Himachali films released during the past one year is like watching your favourite folk tales enacted on the screen. Not sticking to the usual singsong, action formulae, most of these movies are based on age-old themes of love and sacrifice but still they don’t fail to move viewers. And if not romance, Himachali directors prefer granny’s horror stories. "Things are still at a nascent stage and filmmakers cannot afford to experiment with new subjects. So the best thing is to select a story that people have loved and cherished for ages," says Surinder Paniari, whose film Samonar is scheduled for release later this month. "Every Himachali knows the folk tale of Samonar, wife of a soldier who was harassed by her in-laws, and if he relates to it, he will surely watch the film," he says. But there are directors who don’t mind taking a chance. Baijnath-based Naresh Kaul is directing a thriller Koi ta hai, wherein the protagonist is so obsessed with his dead beloved that he turns into a serial killer as something takes over him whenever he sees red colour. "It will be an out-and-out masala movie, with songs in Hindi. The dialogues have been written in Pahari and Hindi," says Kaul. Simultaneously, Kaul is also directing a horror film titled Chaleda. "Chaleda is a bad spirit and people across Himachal have heard stories of chaledas haunting innocents after any unnatural death in their area," he says. Paniari’s next directorial venture will be an untitled film based on the true story of a martyr’s widow caught up in bureaucratic red tape. Dr Gautam S.Vyathit, writer of the film, says the audience will readily pick up a VCD on a folk tale or a true story passed on by word of mouth instead of taking a chance with something unheard of. A dedicated clientele will come up only after potential actors, directors and writers are able to prove themselves with a bunch of hits. Considering that things have just started rolling and films are doing reasonably well, the regional film scene will soon be thriving, he says. The folk tales are considered such a safe proposition that two films were made on the eternal love story of Ranjhu-Fulmu. "Everybody knows the story of Romeo-Juliet but new films are still made on the subject. Similar is the popularity of Ranjhu-Fulmu, Kunju-Chanchlo and Sunhi-Bhunkhu in Himachal," says Dr Vyathit. While finance is hard to come by, prospective filmmakers also rue the fact that most producers and distributors insist on editing a film to half of its actual duration so that it could fit in on a single VCD. "Producers feel it is more likely that the audience will pick up something for a nominal price of Rs 65 or Rs 70 instead of double this amount," says Kaul. The variation in the Pahari language also restricts the market of a regional film to either lower or upper Himachal. "While the dialect in the Kangra region is more like Punjabi and has a wider appeal, the films in Pahari of upper regions suffer from a disadvantage. Almost all new films now have dialogues in a mixed language and the songs are usually in Hindi," says Preet Singh, who owns a CD parlour in Dharamsala. But despite these disadvantages, VCDs of comedies like Fauji Chala Sasural, Gudgudi Himachal Di and Himachal de Shole are selling like hot cakes. Since there are no massive publicity campaigns or promos on the television, the popularity of these films spreads by word of mouth. Amar Dogra, another film director who will soon be launching his untitled film in Palampur, says many artistes and technicians from Himachal who have proved themselves in Bollywood are also returning to their roots to make regional films. "The quality of films will certainly improve with the competition increasing by the day," he says. |
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