Search form

You are here

  • Home
  • Hindi films take a back seat as lockdown propels regional cinema to top spot


Hindi films take a back seat as lockdown propels regional cinema to top spot

Shutterstock
Short Url

https://arab.news/8h6tm

Updated 22 June 2020
Subhash K Jha
Follow

Hindi films take a back seat as lockdown propels regional cinema to top spot

  • Experts say time, range of titles and easy access to streaming platforms are driving the shift
Updated 22 June 2020
Subhash K Jha

PATNA, INDIA: For decades, Indian cinema was synonymous with made-in-Hindi Bollywood content, placing films made in other languages on the backburner.

“Not anymore,” movie aficionados and experts told Arab News on Saturday, citing the range of choices, easy access to content on online streaming platforms and the availability of time due to lockdown restrictions as the main reasons for the shift.

“Streaming channels now showcase top talent from all over India, for a much wider audience, and makes word-of-mouth more effective. So, if I hear a friend recommend a Malayalam movie on Netflix, I will check it out,” said Abhas K. Jha, 54, a World Bank executive and Indian expatriate living in Singapore.

He added that Over-the-Top (OTT) streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime have ensured that “Bollywood is no longer Indian cinema.”

“Because there is so much good content available, it is hard to stick to one genre or language. Thanks to the OTT, we are spoilt for choice,” he said.

Each year, production houses representing the four major languages of south India — Tamil from Tamil Nadu, Telugu from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Malayalam from Kerala, and Kannada from Karnataka — create an impressive range of films.

In 2019, these accounted for 500 films compared to the nearly 575 movies made in Hindi.

Internationally acclaimed director and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, of “Bandit Queen” fame, feels that non-Hindi cinema could soon outplay Bollywood.

“I feel the spotlight and glamor has been concentrated on Bollywood for too long. Regional cinema is no longer regional. It’s time to celebrate cinema made in languages other than Hindi,” he said, adding that such cinema needed due recognition.

“I plan to take the cause of regional cinema to the West. This is the cinema that we need to be recognized by in the West. I just may make a film in a non-Hindi language,” he said.

The shift to content creators outside of Mumbai, where Bollywood is based, became evident in the past five years when south Indian cinema began making incredible inroads into the film-watching habits of Indian movie-goers and culminated with the Telugu production and Prabhas-starrer, “Baahubali.”

Trade and industry experts credit the 2015 blockbuster and its sequel two years later with dissolving the invisible wall between Bollywood and non-Bollywood cinema.

“Baahubali 1,” dubbed in Hindi, amassed $15.6 million, while in Telugu it brought in $20.3 million.

“Baahubali 2,” dubbed in Hindi, accounted for $66.8 million and $42.8 million in Telugu, making it the most successful Indian film of all time.

This was followed by “KGF,” a Kannada-language film with a box office tally of $5.7 million for its Hindi version and $17.7 million for its release in Kannada.

The protagonist of “KGF,” 34-year-old actor Yash, humbly admits that his film turned the tide for regional cinema.

“When people say I put Kannada cinema on the world map, I feel good about it. When we made 'KGF,' we consciously designed it for a pan-India audience. The spoken language is regional, but the spirit of presentation is international,” Yash, who has a massive fan following among Indians everywhere, told Arab News.

Sameer Nair, CEO of production company Applause Entertainment, said that while “Hindi, too, is a regional language,” much credit goes to OTT platforms for ensuring “nothing is lost in translation.”

“I think OTT platforms must get a lot of the credit for collapsing the language and cultural barriers which we faced in the past. Today, with English subtitles, we can consume content in any language or culture . . . The popularity of “Super Deluxe” (in Tamil), is one such example,” he said.

Shabana Azmi, 70, who is one of India’s most accomplished actors with five National Awards to her credit, agrees.

“The lockdown has given me and my husband (writer Javed Akhtar) a chance to see some of the finest works from Indian cinema in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The OTT platform has made it possible for me see films that were not accessible earlier,” she said, adding that the boundary between Bollywood and the rest of Indian cinema was created for “economic reasons.”

“It was created to emphasize the importance of Bollywood cinema as global merchandise. The truth is, even when (the actor) Amitabh Bachchan ruled Bollywood, there was (the actor, producer and screenwriter) Rajinikanth in the south who has an equal fan base both in India and among Indians abroad,” she said.

New-age actor Tapsee Pannu began her career by working in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi films and says that the “regional” tag is insulting to filmmakers such as S.S. Rajamouli (“Baahubali”) and Geetu Mohan whose Malayalam film, “Mothoon,” stirred up a collective surge of appreciation across India.

“To me, there was never a difference between a Hindi and Telugu film. But I sincerely hope more people are watching movies from regional languages now thanks to the OTT. That helps us to know the culture and storytelling (format) from different areas of our country, and cinema also grows in that sense. This can happen only when moviegoers consider Bollywood and non-Bollywood platforms equally important,” she said.

 

Topics: Hindi films

Related

Lifestyle
Priyanka Chopra voices Elsa in Hindi-language ‘Frozen 2’
Special
World
New Delhi tweaks Hindi language bill after south India protests 

Scientists show how pregnancy changes the brain in innumerable ways

Updated 17 September 2024
AP
Follow

Scientists show how pregnancy changes the brain in innumerable ways

  • Although the study looks at only one person, it kicks off a large, international research project that aims to scan the brains of hundreds of women
Updated 17 September 2024
AP

Neuroscientist Liz Chrastil got the unique chance to see how her brain changed while she was pregnant and share what she learned in a new study that offers the first detailed map of a woman’s brain throughout gestation.
The transition to motherhood, researchers discovered, affects nearly every part of the brain.
Although the study looks at only one person, it kicks off a large, international research project that aims to scan the brains of hundreds of women and could one day provide clues about disorders like postpartum depression.
“It’s been a very long journey,” said Chrastil, co-author of the paper published Monday in Nature Neuroscience. “We did 26 scans before, during and after pregnancy” and found “some really remarkable things.”
More than 80 percent of the regions studied had reductions in the volume of gray matter, where thinking takes place. This is an average of about 4 percent of the brain — nearly identical to a reduction that happens during puberty. While less gray matter may sound bad, researchers said it probably isn’t; it likely reflects the fine-tuning of networks of interconnected nerve cells called “neural circuits” to prepare for a new phase of life.
The team began following Chrastil — who works at the University of California, Irvine, and was 38 years old at the time — shortly before she became pregnant through in vitro fertilization.
During the pregnancy and for two years after she gave birth, they continued doing MRI brain scans and drawing blood to observe how her brain changed as sex hormones like estrogen ebbed and flowed. Some of the changes continued past pregnancy.
“Previous studies had taken snapshots of the brain before and after pregnancy, but we’ve never witnessed the brain in the midst of this metamorphosis,” said co-author Emily Jacobs of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Unlike past studies, this one focused on many inner regions of the brain as well as the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer, said Joseph Lonstein, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Michigan State University who was not involved in the research. It’s “a good first step to understanding much more about whole-brain changes that could be possible in a woman across pregnancy and postpartum,” he said.
Research in animals has linked some brain changes with qualities that could be helpful when caring for an infant. While the new study doesn’t address what the changes mean in terms of human behavior, Lonstein pointed out that it describes changes in brain areas involved in social cognition, or how people interact with others and understand their thoughts and feelings, for example.
The researchers have partners in Spain and are moving forward with the larger Maternal Brain Project, which is supported by the Ann S. Bowers Women’s Brain Health Initiative and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
Eventually, they hope scientists can use data from a large number of women for things like predicting postpartum depression before it happens.
“There is so much about the neurobiology of pregnancy that we don’t understand yet, and it’s not because women are too complicated. It’s not because pregnancy is some Gordian knot,” Jacobs said. “It’s a byproduct of the fact that biomedical sciences have historically ignored women’s health.”

Topics: pregnancy Scientists brain

Related

World
In India’s Gujarat, mothers navigate pregnancy with dream baby apps
World
One woman dies every 2 mins in pregnancy, childbirth: UN

Thai baby hippo Internet star draws thousands to her zoo

Updated 16 September 2024
Reuters
Follow

Thai baby hippo Internet star draws thousands to her zoo

  • Moo Deng, whose name means “bouncing pig” in Thai, has millions of fans on social media following her clumsily charming adventures, including trying to nibble her handler despite still lacking teeth
Updated 16 September 2024
Reuters

CHONBURI: Thailand’s latest Internet celebrity, baby hippo “Moo Deng,” is challenging her keepers with the unexpectedly big crowds she is drawing to her zoo, two hours south of the capital Bangkok.
Moo Deng, whose name means “bouncing pig” in Thai, has millions of fans on social media following her clumsily charming adventures, including trying to nibble her handler despite still lacking teeth.
“Normally on weekdays and in the rainy season — which is a low season — we’d be getting around 800 visitors each day,” said Narungwit Chodchoy, director of the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province.
But the zoo is now getting 3,000 to 4,000 people on weekdays, and welcomed 20,000 visitors over the weekend, he said — most of them lining up to see Moo Deng.
“Moo Deng fever means we will have organize better so all visitors can see her,” Narungwit said.
On Monday morning, the pink-cheeked hippo, whose siblings are called Pork Stew and Sweet Pork, was sitting happily in a bowl of vegetables and other snacks.
“I left home in Bangkok from 6:30 this morning just to come and see Moo Deng,” said 45-year-old Ekaphak Mahasawad. “I’m only here to see her.”
Moo Deng’s grandmother, Malee, recently celebrated her 59th birthday as Thailand’s oldest hippo.

Topics: Thai Hippo

Related

Business & Economy
EV Auto Show 2024: Riyadh set for key exhibition, spotlighting Saudi green goals
Update
Middle-East
Yemeni Houthis claim downing third US drone in September 

Shy penguin wins New Zealand’s bird election after campaign filled with memes and tattoos

Updated 16 September 2024
AP
Follow

Shy penguin wins New Zealand’s bird election after campaign filled with memes and tattoos

  • The hoiho — a noisy, smelly and shy bird believed to be the world’s rarest penguin — was propelled to its second victory by a star-studded campaign
Updated 16 September 2024
AP

WELLINGTON: It’s noisy, smelly, shy — and New Zealand’s bird of the year.
The hoiho, or yellow-eyed penguin, won the country’s fiercely fought avian election on Monday, offering hope to supporters of the endangered bird that recognition from its victory might prompt a revival of the species.
It followed a campaign for the annual Bird of the Year vote that was absent the foreign interference scandals and cheating controversies of past polls. Instead, campaigners in the long-running contest sought votes in the usual ways — launching meme wars, seeking celebrity endorsements and even getting tattoos to prove their loyalty.
More than 50,000 people voted in the poll, 300,000 fewer than last year, when British late night host John Oliver drove a humorous campaign for the pūteketeke — a “deeply weird bird” which eats and vomits its own feathers – securing a landslide win.
This year, the number of votes cast represented 10 percent of the population of New Zealand — a country where nature is never far away and where a love of native birds is instilled in citizens from childhood.
“Birds are our heart and soul,” said Emma Rawson, who campaigned for the fourth-placed ruru, a small brown owl with a melancholic call. New Zealand’s only native mammals are bats and marine species, putting the spotlight on its birds, which are beloved — and often rare.
This year’s victor, the hoiho — its name means “noise shouter” in the Māori language — is a shy bird thought to be the world’s rarest penguin. Only found on New Zealand’s South and Chatham islands — and on subantarctic islands south of the country — numbers have dropped perilously by 78 percent in the past 15 years.
“This spotlight couldn’t have come at a better time. This iconic penguin is disappearing from mainland Aotearoa before our eyes,” Nicola Toki, chief executive of Forest & Bird — the organization that runs the poll — said in a press release, using the Māori name for New Zealand. Despite intensive conservation efforts on land, she said, the birds drown in nets and sea and can’t find enough food.
“The campaign has raised awareness, but what we really hope is that it brings tangible support,” said Charlie Buchan, campaign manager for the hoiho. But while the bird is struggling, it attracted a star billing in the poll: celebrity endorsements flew in from English zoologist Jane Goodall, host of the Amazing Race Phil Keoghan, and two former New Zealand prime ministers.
Aspiring bird campaign managers — this year ranging from power companies to high school students — submit applications to Forest & Bird for the posts. The hoiho bid was run by a collective of wildlife groups, a museum, a brewery and a rugby team in the city of Dunedin, where the bird is found on mainland New Zealand, making it the highest-powered campaign of the 2024 vote.
“I do feel like we were the scrappy underdog,” said Emily Bull, a spokesperson for the runner-up campaign, for the karure — a small, “goth” black robin only found on New Zealand’s Chatham Island.
The karure’s bid was directed by the students’ association at Victoria University of Wellington, prompting a fierce skirmish on the college campus when the student magazine staged an opposing campaign for the kororā, or little blue penguin.
The rivalry provoked a meme war and students in bird costumes. Several people got tattoos. When the magazine’s campaign secured endorsements of the city council and local zoo, Bull despaired for the black robin’s bid.
But the karure — which has performed a real-life comeback since the 1980s, with conservation efforts increasing the species from five birds to 250 — took second place overall.
This weekend as Rawson wrapped up her campaign for the ruru, she took her efforts directly to the people, courting votes at a local dog park. The veteran campaign manager who has directed the bids for other birds in past years was rewarded by the ruru placing fourth in the poll, her best ever result.
“I have not been in human political campaigning before,” said Rawson, who is drawn to the competition because of the funds and awareness it generates. The campaign struck a more sedate tone this year, she added.
“There’s been no international interference, even though that was actually a lot of fun,” she said, referring to Oliver’s high-profile campaign.
It was not the only controversy the election has seen. While anyone in the world can vote, Forest & Bird now requires electors to verify their ballots after foreign interference plagued the contest before. In 2018, Australian pranksters cast hundreds of fraudulent votes in favor of the shag.
The following year, Forest & Bird was forced to clarify that a flurry of votes from Russia appeared to be from legitimate bird-lovers.
While campaigns are fiercely competitive, managers described tactics more akin to pro wrestling — in which fights are scripted — than divisive political contests.
“Sometimes people want to make posts that are kind of like beefy with you and they’ll always message you and be like, hey, is it okay if I post this?” Bull said. “There is a really sweet community. It’s really wholesome.”

Topics: New Zealand

Related

Update
Middle-East
Gaza rescuers say at least 18 killed in Israeli strikes
World
Philippines says ‘we have not lost’ South China Sea reef after pullout

Tech billionaire returns to Earth after first private spacewalk

Updated 15 September 2024
AP
Follow

Tech billionaire returns to Earth after first private spacewalk

Updated 15 September 2024
AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: A billionaire spacewalker returned to Earth with his crew on Sunday, ending a five-day trip that lifted them higher than anyone has traveled since NASA’s moonwalkers.
SpaceX’s capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Florida’s Dry Tortugas in the predawn darkness, carrying tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, two SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot.
They pulled off the first private spacewalk while orbiting nearly 460 miles (740 kilometers) above Earth, higher than the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope. Their spacecraft hit a peak altitude of 875 miles (1,408 kilometers) following Tuesday’s liftoff.
Isaacman became only the 264th person to perform a spacewalk since the former Soviet Union scored the first in 1965, and SpaceX’s Sarah Gillis the 265th. Until now, all spacewalks were done by professional astronauts.
During Thursday’s commercial spacewalk, the Dragon capsule’s hatch was open barely a half-hour. Isaacman emerged only up to his waist to briefly test SpaceX’s brand new spacesuit followed by Gillis, who was knee high as she flexed her arms and legs for several minutes. Gillis, a classically trained violinist, also held a performance in orbit earlier in the week.
The spacewalk lasted less than two hours, considerably shorter than those at the International Space Station. Most of that time was needed to depressurize the entire capsule and then restore the cabin air. Even SpaceX’s Anna Menon and Scott “Kidd” Poteet, who remained strapped in, wore spacesuits.
SpaceX considers the brief exercise a starting point to test spacesuit technology for future, longer missions to Mars.
This was Isaacman’s second chartered flight with SpaceX, with two more still ahead under his personally financed space exploration program named Polaris after the North Star. He paid an undisclosed sum for his first spaceflight in 2021, taking along contest winners and a pediatric cancer survivor while raising more than $250 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
For the just completed so-called Polaris Dawn mission, the founder and CEO of the Shift4 credit card-processing company shared the cost with SpaceX. Isaacman won’t divulge how much he spent.

Topics: SpaceX

A river otter attacks a child at a Seattle-area marina

Updated 15 September 2024
AP
Follow

A river otter attacks a child at a Seattle-area marina

  • River otters can be territorial and “like any wildlife, are inherently unpredictable,” officials said
Updated 15 September 2024
AP

BREMERTON, Washington: A river otter attacked a child at a Seattle-area marina, dragging the youngster from a dock and into the water before the mother rescued her child, wildlife officials said.
The child was pulled underwater and resurfaced after a few moments during the encounter Thursday at 9:30 a.m. at the Bremerton Marina in Kitsap County, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers said in a press release.
The otter continued to bite and scratch as the mother pulled the child out of the water. The animal chased them as they left the dock, wildlife officials said. The child was treated at a hospital.
“We are grateful the victim only sustained minor injuries, due to the mother’s quick actions and child’s resiliency,” said Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Ken Balazs. “We would also like to thank the Port of Bremerton for their quick coordination and communication to their marina tenants.”
Officers trapped the otter and took it to a disease diagnostic lab for testing, including for rabies, the release said. The agency did not respond to questions Saturday about test results.
River otters are common throughout Washington and can be found in fresh and saltwater habitats, officials said. Encounters with humans are rare, with six occurring in the past decade, they said. River otters can be territorial and “like any wildlife, are inherently unpredictable,” officials said.

Topics: animal attack otter

Related

photos
Saudi Arabia
Vibrant feathers in Asir’s cap
photos
Saudi Arabia
Bon voyage: Retired airplanes take Jeddah to Riyadh road trip

Latest updates

Joao Cancelo scores for Al-Hilal in win over Al-Rayyan in Asian Champions League
12-year-old boy youngest to be sentenced over UK riots
Hikma and Saudi Gastroenterology Association elevate IBD care across KSA
‘Reprehensible’: Pakistan says Afghan acting consul general ‘disrespected’ national anthem
Budapest and Poland’s Wroclaw reinforce river banks ahead of more flooding in Central Europe

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2024 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.