Hollywood hues

World cinema, which one could never hope to see on the screen a decade ago, is now
available to discerning audiences, writes Ervell E. Menezes

The foreign film scenario has slowly but surely changed and for the better in India and the film buff has a variety of films to choose from. Not only the Hollywood potboilers, which dominated the screens for decades with their powerful distribution network, today one has access to Cannes winners like The Class and Three Monkeys, Iranian and Turkish-Kurdish classics like Turtles Can Fly and Edge of Heaven and a whole lot of aesthetic films from France, Germany, Sweden, Poland and Spain which one could never hope to see on the screen a decade ago.

For this, one must thank the liberalisation policy in which independent importers are allowed to get these films with no restriction on the number of prints. And today the economics of films has changed quite drastically. Bollywood films with simultaneous all-India releases can recover their investments within the first weekend and the foreign films are not far behind because they have TV and cable outlets too.

In the early 1970s, the Indian Motion Picture Export Corporation (IMPEC) chairman A. M. Tariq fired the first salvo against the Motion Picture Export Association of America (MPEAA) by not renewing their licences. The MPEAA comprises companies like Columbia, Warner Bros, Twentieth-Century Fox, United Artists and Metro-Goldwin-Mayer. It seemed to be a political decision. There was a lull in the exhibition of US films for three or four years till the licences were renewed in 1975. Meanwhile, the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) was entrusted with the task of expanding its imports. It was a golden opportunity to make a splash with a good product.

But like most government organizations, it did not function effectively. They lacked initiative and bureaucracy buried any endeavour to improve. Competence, too, was largely missing. Their biggest mistake was not setting up a chain of cinemas where they could find outlets for quality films. They had to compete with the demand of other importers and reached such a stage that in the late-1980s they were competing with independent importers by getting the same sex-oriented films their selection panels did not pass.

Another point to be noted is that Hollywood films consist essentially of escapist entertainment while European films are realistic and generally deal with life in its many facets. It is like an essay and the pace is measured, even halting. But in the end, they make a point and a valid one at that and hence they have a more serious audience. Even the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) concentrates on European cinema for its students. Recently Iran, Turkey, Iraq and other countries have joined this pool of reality films and they have a serious cinema following. Thankfully these films are being made available to discerning audiences.

Today too there is a complete change in the economics of film production and distribution, there is a sea-change in the exhibition of foreign films. This has made European classics available to the cinema buff in India. NDTV-Lumiere for instance is one of the best importers of quality films and they have an illustrious list of art films.

Marketing manager Dhruvank Vaidya explains why. "In terms of theatre releases we are quite low," he says because they are concentrating on DVD sales. They have 40 titles available in 24 cities and 400 outlets. Their next priority is cinema releases where they have three to five prints of each film and again it is the costs of exhibition that prevents them from releasing them in multiplexes. "We intend setting up a TV channel shortly and then it will be made a pay channel," says Vaidya. It is their aim to have cineists who can afford it to pay for good cinema.

After NDTV-Lumiere, another important importer is Multi-Vision who have been in the business for nearly five years with 45 releases the most popular of them being Forbidden Kingdom, Accidental Husband and Radcliffe.

They have also released Jackie Chan films but they scarcely count in terms of quality. Their average runs are only two weeks for each film.

PVR Pictures is another importer that is bringing in quality films. Recently they screened the hard rock concert named The Iron Maiden. Then Burn after Reading and Flash of a Fool also did well at the box-office. So, it is a welcome change for cinema buffs who do not have to rely on the Hollywood, which is today scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Unlike the 1960s and the 1970s when their product was of a high standard they are hitting an all-time low with scarcely 20 per cent of the product being above average.

This expansion of the world cinema market is therefore most welcome. It was possible to see such films only at film festivals. Now they are available on a day-to-day basis and for the public. May this trend continue.

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