A panel of directors urged that films should not be typecast as 'multiplex' films as this could do injustice.The panel discussion — entitled “Urbane themes, gloss and technical savvy topped with high-end pricing: Is Hindi cinema increasingly the preserve of NRIs and multiplex audience?” — was organised by the Express Group’s film weekly Screen as part of its 58th anniversary celebrations.
The panel included filmmaker Kabir Khan, fresh from his success of New York, maker of Jhankaar Beats Sujoy Ghosh and the upcoming Aladin, Little Zizou director Sooni Taraporewala and the Chairman of Fame Cinema, Shyam Shroff.
“Thanks to multiplexes, we’re now making films we couldn’t possibly have made earlier,” said Khan, who began as a documentary filmmaker and made a smooth transition to Bollywood with Kabul Express before delivering this year’s first commercial hit in New York.
But asked what “multiplex cinema” really meant, the panellists were unanimous that the term is an artificial construct with no real meaning for filmmakers.
Ghosh, however, said that certain kinds of films worked well only with a certain section of the audience. “A multiplex audience is usually more accepting of different kinds of films and is more aware of trends in global cinema,” he said.
Taraporewala said that while she owes much to the multiplex phenomenon which made the release of Little Zizou possible, there were drawbacks. “Multiplex cinema tends to get equated with elite cinema, because they’re more expensive than single-screens.” Shroff defended multiplexes pointing to their better sound and picture quality and also the fact that black-marketing of tickets had radically reduced.
All panellists agreed though that while a multiplex release made sense for a small-budget, independent film, big-banner, mainstream projects did well everywhere.
“It’s a risk the distributor has to take,” said Shroff, referring to the smaller films. “A movie like Wanted or Dil Bole Hadippa can hope to have a reasonable run on all screens. However, the same can’t be said for a powerful, but small movie like Yeh Mera India , which won’t fill the thousand-odd seats in a single screen.”
The discussion also focused on whether Bollywood films no longer reflected concerns of small-town and rural India and were alienating audiences there. Khan pointed out that this has less to do with multiplexes than the fact that most filmmakers these days are starting out much younger.
