Southern film industry continue to be neglected

Panaji, Nov 27 (UNI) Despite possessing technological finesse, phenomenally popular male filmstars and producing the highest number of movies annually, South Indian film industry lament the fact that the regional cinema continues to remain neglected as against their counterparts in Bollywood.

Maintaining that the South Indian filmmakers respect their Mumbai based counterparts, L Suresh of Chennai based Ananda Pictures said, ''But, it should not always be forgotten that there are four strong younger brothers also which constitute the Indian cinema.'' He further said the Southern film industry especially Tamil and Telugu cinema was opening up to the outside world with keen interest being shown by Turkey and Germany for a package of South Indian films. ''Kannada and Malyalam film industry has a strong parallel cinema as well where as Tamil and Telugu churn out popular mainstream movies which are equal to that of Bollywood,'' he added.

Mr P K Nair from the Malyalam cinema echoed Suresh's views saying that despite the Southern film industry producing more than 500 of the total 950 films made every year in India, the outside world knew only Satyajit Ray from India and now it is Bollywood.

''We have no problem about it because Hindi is spoken by majority of audiences to patronise the overseas market but if it leads to elimination of other cinemas, then it is a matter of concern,''he said.

The curator of the National Film Archives, Mr Nair added it was the responsibility of the society at large to ensure that quality regional cinema gets patronage and wide exhibition outside their respective states. Similarly, he felt prints of good movies which may have not done well at the box office needs to be preserved.

Mr Bharadwaj, who represented the Telugu cinema at the discussion on the South Indian film industry at the Film Bazaar workshop as part of the ongoing 37th IFFI, said South Indian films are being screened in other parts of the country with English sub-titles.

Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of cinema screens in the state followed by Tamil Nadu (2200), Karnataka (1200) and Kerala, he added.

He said even though actors like Rajnikant and Chiranjeevi enjoyed phenomenal success as stars, there were no local heroines adding that all the leading ladies are from outside the state who cannot even speak the local language.

UNI MR MS BS1503