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| FILMI FUNDAS: (Top) Shah Rukh Khan with his wax model at Madame Tussauds and Jessica Hines with her book on Amitabh Bachchan |
Ask an average Brit to name two favourite English dishes and chances are that, along with something like a shepherd’s pie or an Aberdeen steak, you’ll get to hear a familiar name — chicken tikka masala. And soon, the way things are moving, if you ask Britons for two all-time favourite films, they’ll name something like Love Actually along with Rang De Basanti or Lage Raho Munnabhai.
A Bollywood craze is engulfing London. Hindi films are being discussed in UK papers, festivals are being held in Britain showcasing Bollywood, Madame Tussauds is crowded with Mumbai stars and Jessica Hines has just released her book on Amitabh Bachchan. The relationship between Bollywood and the UK is strengthening, and experts hold that the affair may just be a long-term one.
Financially, too, there is good news coming in from the UK. Already, Bollywood releases in England have outpaced home-grown British productions. In 2006, 69 Bollywood films were released in the UK compared with about 25 British home productions. Bollywood films are also big grossers. Five weeks after its UK release last August, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was reported to have grossed more than £2 million — something that even the best British films may take more than a year to collect.
“Bollywood will become a larger part of the film industry here. It is not a one off, short-term fad; it’s a fantastic opportunity to work together. It’s a boom for the next five to 10 years at the least,” says Adrian Wootton, CEO, Film London, an organisation that provides logistical and legal support to filmmakers shooting in London.
And no wonder England is fast becoming one of the most popular shooting locales for the film industry. Last year, 40 Bollywood films were shot in London. Currently, the Vivek Agnihotri-directed John Abraham-Bipasha Basu starrer, Goal, is being shot in the UK.
Wootton points out that the UK made £30 million from Bollywood and Indian shoots last year, while Bollywood made £12 million at the box office. “This is serious business. We can only look at long term economic development and a very fruitful partnership with India,” he says, pointing out that South Asians form the largest ethnic minority group in the UK.
And that explains why Bollywood is everywhere. The three largest multiplex chains in London — Vue Cinemas, Odeon and Cineworld — routinely screen Hindi films. Film magazines and newspapers in UK have been discussing Hindi films. Sight and Sound, the prestigious cinema journal, reviewed Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Ekalvya in its March issue. The Guardian devoted considerable space to the Akshay Kumar-Katrina starrer Namastey London, while Mira Nair’s The Namesake drew critical acclaim in the pages of The Daily Telegraph and The Times. The online edition of The Times has a separate webpage devoted to Bollywood.
“The English-literate Asian community in the UK represents a large chunk of mainstream English daily readers. The publishers therefore have to take note of this community and its movie preferences,” says Naman Ramachandran, critic for Sight and Sound and author of Lights, Sound, Masala.
There is some speculation on why Hindi films have suddenly caught the fancy of Britain. Some, like Ramachandran, believe that the focus on Bollywood is a part of India’s emergence as an economic player in recent times. “India is becoming a stakeholder in the UK. L.N. Mittal is the richest man in the UK. The Tatas have taken over Corus and Tetley. All these have contributed to the rising interest in Bollywood.”
It is also a relationship that the UK can benefit from. “India provides excellent and cheap animation studios, post-production facilities, film equipment and a pool of talented but cheap technicians which UK can avail of,” says Ramachandran. “It is also a favourite with line producers for its exotic locations”.
Not surprisingly, even the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) is looking eastwards. Last year, for the first time, BAFTA focused on Bollywood, with a three-day festival called “BAFTA goes Bollywood.” Films such as Veer Zara, Devdas, Dil Chahta Hai and Rang De Basanti were screened, along with interactive sessions with Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Preity Zinta and other Bollywood luminaries.
This year, BAFTA has zeroed in on Amitabh Bachchan. “BAFTA has written to Mr Bachchan’s office requesting a weekend with him and his works on the 17th and 18th of June this year,” says Mariayah Kaderbhai, event producer of BAFTA. The festival will include an interaction with Bachchan along with the screening of his films.
For Bollywood, all this is good news. The UK, according to Kushagra Jalan, director of the distributing company Kushagra Arts, contributed 30 per cent of the total overseas revenues generated by Bollywood films in the last financial year. About 35 per cent came from the US and Canada, 15 per cent from West Asia and the remaining 20 per cent from other international territories.
And that is one of the reasons practically every big distribution house — including Adlabs, Yash Raj studios and Sunil Darshan’s Tip Top Video — has set up shop in London. The latest addition to this list is Studio18, which opened its office in UK in January, 2007.
Wootten believes that this is just the beginning. “The whole year has been earmarked as ‘India Now’ and will be dedicated to developing relationships between India and London. There are regular screenings and discussions of Bollywood films at the British Film Institute scheduled for the whole of summer,” he says.
also on the anvil are talks on co- production treaties. An Indo-UK Production Treaty is likely to figure prominently during the Mumbai visit this November of London mayor Ken Livingstone. Creative industries minister Shaun Woodward is believed to be working on the treaty — and an announcement may be made at the Cannes Film Festival later this year.
Experts hold that once the treaty comes through, the number of Bollywood shoots per year in Britain would increase to anything between 5 and 25 per cent. Film London is also working on stimulating private financial investment by staging a platform where producers and financiers can meet, and is contemplating inviting Indian producers to London. “It is a very exciting time for both countries,” says Wootton.
But will it prove to be a short-term romance, or will it become the kind of a happily-ever-after marriage that Hindi movies always seem to end with? The story will unfurl after the interval.