Traversing boundaries: Contemporary Hindi cinema at international film festivals

ABSTRACT

The paper investigates the symbiotic relationship between international film festivals and contemporary Hindi cinema. The years post 2010 have witnessed an increase in showcasing of Hindi cinema at international film festivals. Unlike earlier Indian cinema that has been celebrated at global platforms, the Hindi cinema under discussion situates itself at a juncture between the commercial and the art. In fact, a number of mainstream filmmakers who attempt unconventional themes, are exploring international film festivals as suitable avenues to reach a larger audience and to forge newer alliances. The primary theoretical framework of this research will draw upon Marijke‘s proposition that film festivals are ‘sites of cultural legitimisation’ (77); along with, as an entry point, Pierre Bourdieu’s understanding of the festival space as an active site for the generation of economic and cultural capital. In addition, the study also investigates how Hindi filmmakers use this platform to market cinema and reach an international audience. This paper attempts to evaluate the above dynamics through the prism of three representative cinematic texts: Masaan (Dir. Ghaywan), Newton (Dir. Masurkar) and Gully Boy (Dir. Akhtar).

KEYWORDS:

• Film festivals
• independent cinema
• hindi films
• cultural capital
• globalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Filmography

Aakrosh. Dir. Govind Nihalani. Devi Dutt and NFDC, 1980. Film.

Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai. Dir. Saaed Akhtar Mirza. Saaed Akhtar Mirza, 1980. Film.

Aligarh. Dir. Hansal Mehta. Eros Entertainment and Karma Pictures, 2016. Film.

Ardh Satya. Dir. Govind Nihalani. Manmohan Shetty and Pradeep Uppoor, 1983. Film.

Bhoomi. Dir. Omung Kumar. T-Series and Legend Studios, 2017. Film.

Bombay Talkies. Dir. Karan Johar Flying Unicorn Entertainment, 2013. Film.

Chakra. Dir. Robin Dharmaraj. Neo Films, 1981. Film.

Dhanak. Dir. Nagesh Kukunoor. Kukunoor Movies and Drishyam Films, 2015. Film.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Dir. Aditya Chopra. Yash Raj Films, 1995. Film.

Finding Fanny. Dir. Homi Adjania. Maddock Films, 2014. Film.

Gangs of Wasseypur. Dir. Anurag Kashyap. Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt. Ltd. and Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, 2012. Film.

Gully Boy. Dir. Zoya Akhtar. Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby Films, 2019. Film.

Haseena Parkar. Dir. Apoorva Lakhia. Swiss Entertainment, 2017. Film.

Highway. Dir. Imtiaz Ali. Window Seat Films and Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, 2014. Film.

Love Sex Aur Dhokha. Dir. Dibakar Banerjee. ALT Entertainment and Freshwater Films, 2010. Film.

Masaan. Dir. Neeraj Ghaywan. Drishyam Films et al., 2015. Film.

Mathilukal. Dir. Adoor Gopalkrishnan. Adoor Gopalkrishnan, 1955. Film.

Neecha Nagar. Dir. Chetan Anand. India Pictures, 1946. Film.

Newton. Dir. Amit Masurkar. Drishyam Films, 2017. Film.

Nishant. Dir. Shyam Benegal. Mohan J. Bijlani and Freni Variava, 1975. Film.

Queen. Dir. Vikas Bahl. Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Phantom Films, 2013. Film.

Pather Panchali. Dir. Satyajit Ray. Government of West Bengal, 1955. Film.

Parched. Dir. Leena Yadav. Ajay Devgn Films, 2015. Film.

Peepli Live. Dir. Anusha Rizvi and Mahmood Farooqui. Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao, 2010. Film.

Raman Raghav 2.0. Dir. Anurag Kashyap. Phantom Films, 2016. Film.

Salaam Bombay! Dir. Mira Nair. Cadrage et al., 1988. Film.

Secret Ballot. Dir. Babak Payami. Marco Mueller, 2001. Film.

Seeta. Dir. Debaki Bose. East India Film Company, 1934. Film.

Shahid. Dir. Hansal Mehta. Anurag Kashyap Films, Bohra Bros Production and UTV Spotboy, 2013. Film.

Slumdog Millionaire. Dir. Danny Boyle. Celador Films and Film4 Productions, 2008. Film.

The Lunchbox. Dir. Ritesh Batra. DAR Motion Pictures, UTV Motion Pictures, Dharma Productions, Sikhya Entertainment and NFDC, 2013. Film.

The Rapist. Dir. Aparna Sen. Applause Entertainment, 2021. Film.

Umrika. Dir. Prashant Nair. Drishyam Films, 2015. Film.

Uri: The Surgical Strike. Dir. Aditya Dhar. RSVP Movies, 2019. Film.

Ugly. Dir. Anurag Kashyap. Phantom Films, 2014. Film.

Trapped. Dir. Vikramaditya Motwane. Phantom Films, 2017. Film.

Notes

1. For further details refer to Bourdieu, Pierre. The Forms of Capital. 1986. Ed. John G Richardson. London: Greenwood Press. 241–258. Print.

2. One of the earliest Indian movies to receive international acclaim, was a Bengali film Seeta (Dir. Bose) starring Prithviraj Kapoor and Durga Khote, comes close to this understanding (Valck 29). Deriving from certain aspects of the popular Hindu epic, Ramayana the film was screened at the Venice International Film Festival. Since then, a number of films that have been lauded at festivals, including Pather Panchali (Dir. Ray) and Mathilukal (Dir. Gopalkrishnan), belong to the distinct category of the Indian art-house, the parallel cinema. These handful of films, released roughly between the 1940s and the 1960s, clearly nodded at the Italian neorealism, a movement where cinema sought to hold the mirror to society.

3. The parallel cinema, spearheaded by directors like Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak in Bengal, soon came to refer to the works of select groups of ‘art house’ filmmakers, prominent among them were Kumar Shahani, M.S. Sathyu, Mrinal Sen, Basu Chatterjee and Shyam Benegal. Their films were ideologically committed to films that repudiated the crassness of commercial Hindi cinema, focusing instead for an ideologically left-driven approach towards social issues of the time (poverty, rural-urban divide, women’s empowerment, etc). Though a structural continuation from the art cinema of the 1960s, what differentiated the parallel cinema, or the ‘middle-cinema’, as it came to be known in the late 1980s, was its ability to strike a trade-off between commerce and art to cater to the ‘rising urban Indian middle class’ (Devasundaram 102).

4. Likewise, Gully Boy also challenges the notion of femininity as the female protagonist rejects the traditional role of lover as a potential homemaker and asserts on the importance of a career.

5. Founded by Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, Vikas Bahl and Madhu Mantena, the organisation has to their credit, festival favourites like Queen (Dir. Bahl), Ugly (Dir. Kashyap) and Raman Raghav 2.0 (Dir. Kashyap).

6. See for more information: Basu, Anustup. Bollywood in the Age of New Media: The Geo-Televisual Aesthetic. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010. Print.

7. Newton’s central character is played by Rajkummar Rao, whose presence in festival movies is well-established, as seen from his body of work: Love Sex Aur Dhoka, Shahid (Dir. Mehta), and Trapped (Dir. Motwane).

8. Newton’s central premise – an Everyman fighting a corrupt system – is in the lineage of early Indian parallel cinema of the 1970s and 1980s- Aakrosh (Dir. Nihalani), Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai (Dir. Mirza), Ardh Satya (Dir. Nihalani) and Nishant (Dir. Benegal).

9. Secret Ballot (Dir. Payami) has explored similar themes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The authors acknowledge the Dean ICSR, IIT Madras for the ERP grant [HSS/16-17/836/RFER/AYSH; The authors acknowledge the Dean ICSR, IIT Madras for the ERP grantThe authors acknowledge the Dean ICSR, IIT Madras for the ERP grant [HSS/16-17/836/RFER/AYSH].