Aparna Sen, Sumita Bhattacharya (producer of Angshumaner Chhobi) and Apurv Nagpal of Saregama at the Databazaar meet. (Aranya Sen)

The Japanese Wife: $8,528; Ekti Tarar Khonje: $2,740; Jodi Ekdin: $2,420; Angshumaner Chhobi: $1,790.

Databazaar Media Ventures, a Miami-based technology multinational marketing Bengali films in the US, handed over the “producers’ share” of earnings from screening the four films in North America at a gathering at Conclave last week, showing how Tollywood is making inroads into the Indian diaspora.

While the response in Washington DC and Toronto was encouraging, it was better in California, Los Angeles and San Francisco. No wonder then that Tolly filmmakers are queuing up for a US release.

“Every single Bengali movie in production has pretty much approached us. We have a totally untapped market in the US. For us, the question was how to bridge the gap. We realised that it’s a huge monetary outlet involving technology and we being a technology company, we felt we were at the right place to deliver this,” Oney Seal of Databazaar. The revenue comes from theatrical screenings and online rentals.

So, on what basis will Tolly movies be chosen for a US release? “There are 12 or 15 films that we will push heavily in distribution. But it is not just about screening a movie. You also have to make people aware that a particular film is now available in the US, so we spend about $35,000 to $50,000 on promoting each title,” said Seal.

The “aptness” of a film for the US market is determined by a film review board comprising Americans and Indian Americans. Databazaar has acquired the rights for Bomkesh Bakshi, Shukno Lanka, Life Goes On and upcoming releases like Laboratory and Natobar Not Out.

Aparna Sen, whose The Japanese Wife fared the best among all the Tolly films, drew attention to the importance of choosing the right theatre for a Tollywood film. “It was very sad when my film Mr & Mrs Iyer was released in places like Edison where only commercial Hindi films are shown,” said Sen.

Seal attributed much of the success of The Japanese Wife to its “global title and universal theme that appeal to the foreign market”.

“It is a great start. The Databazaar initiative will give hope to urban filmmakers that they can make films and probably recover the cost. The next step, hopefully, will be creating a theatrical distribution chain,” said exhibitor-distributor Arijit Dutta, also a part of Databazaar.

Databazaar has also launched “the first Indian content channel” on the IPTV network. “For that we’ll be open to taking almost all Bengali films. Here quantity is more important than quality. We need to have a big library,” added Dutta.