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India has a longstanding reputation for its acclaimed film industry and continues to be by far the world's largest producer of films. Nevertheless, domestic demand for films appears to be waning as in a number of developed countries with mature film industries. Hence, the econometric analysis in this paper is particularly timely as with demand for films in Indian cinemas falling it is important to identify those factors that make films appealing for Indian audiences. An original dataset is utilised that includes data on all Bollywood films released in India between 2011 and 2015. Account is taken of the potential endogeneity between variables through the use of the generalised method of moments approach. Results are used to demonstrate how the Indian film market can continue to have a significant positive impact on the Indian economy. The discussion highlights appropriate film production company strategies and government policy responses that should be considered to ensure the continued success of the Indian film industry both domestically and in an increasingly competitive international market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the role of screenwriters and dialogue writers within the more extensive filmmaking process of New Bollywood. Drawing on ethnographic data, I foreground the creative tools, research and negotiations that prompt screenwriters to conceptualise and pitch character arcs that feature disability while positioning the writer as central to diversify film genres. By building on scholarship on production cultures, scripting and disability studies, I draw upon factors that navigate the writer's gaze from non-hereditary filmmaking networks to foreground disabilities in scripts and character arcs in efforts to strategise that they do not classify as reductive pathologisations and supercripping cultures. This article pays close attention to the conditions, identity politics, biases and situated vulnerabilities of writers that shape the assemblages of scripting disability rhetorics. The data from semi-structured interviews, with an explicit focus on three films and their script ideation and production pedagogies, illustrate these interlinkages and insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at Ashutosh Gowariker's film Swades: We the People (Homeland, 2004), a cinematic narrative dealing with a non-resident Indian's return to his homeland, to argue that this film challenges the paradigm Bollywood films have set for representing the Indian diaspora by questioning the idea of originary bond between the diasporic subject and his homeland. I argue that Mohan's return is not, unlike his Bollywood predecessors, determined by either a metaphysical cultural re-turn to an idealized homeland or an expression of what Aihwa Ong terms as ‘flexible citizenship.’ Rather, the filmmaker locates this narrative of return within the context of the material and the everyday. The paper argues that the filmmaker accomplishes this by destabilizing the discourse of oedipalic and homing desire that has been used by Bollywood cinema to dramatize the diaspora's belonging to the motherland. Deploying the character of a foster-mother and the spatial metaphor of a caravan, Swades brings in the element of praxis or thought-action to engage with the Gandhian politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the 'Tamil-ness' of Tamil cinema was not based on any fixed linguistic identity, but was constructed as a matter of production practice and critical discourse after the introduction of sound film during the 1930s. Using contemporary sources the paper looks at how the Tamil part of Tamil cinema was constructed through changes in film form, production and music at a time when producers and directors were confronted with new and as yet untested linguistic and geographic parameters for imagining their audiences. The Tamil-ness of Tamil film must also be read in relation to an increasing differentiation within the ongoing linguistic division of Indian cinema, the critical discourses of Tamil revival and the cultural politics of caste and class during the 1930s and 1940s. This paper problematizes the Tamil identity of Tamil cinema as a stable, self-contained, linguistically bounded tradition during the 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has been blessed with incredible cultural diversity, scenic locations, low production costs and trained film crews. Increased collaboration between India and other countries will certainly aid in optimizing the country realizing its true potential in terms of its natural and man-made resources. Film production benefits the destination/location in several ways that has been widely accepted all over the world. From creating employment to propagating the tourism potentials of a destination, film productions have benefitted the destinations greatly. However, all these benefits have not been availed by the film industry in Assam - be it due to lack of interest of filmmakers or due to lack of incentives. Key State Governments in India have recognized benefits of promoting their respective states by attracting Film productions and have initiated measures to attract both foreign and local filmmakers by offering production and tax incentives. But there is a total dearth of incentives and sops for filmmakers to come and shoot their films in Assam. The Film industry in Assam is over 80(eighty) years old, but still Assamese films have not been able to create a curiosity or desire in the minds of people, outside the state or outside the country, to visit the state. Moreover, national and international filmmakers are also not interested in producing good commercial films in the state. Steps can be taken to attract film productions from national and international filmmakers by offering incentives. Moreover, the local filmmakers can also be motivated to produce films propagating the tourism potentials of the state. The paper has been prepared by studying and analysing data from secondary sources including reports, articles, books and internet websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bollywood has been extensively studied for its nationalist themes, its widespread popularity, and its emphasis on tradition and ritual. For the most part, these traditions and rituals tend to be derived from Hindu mythology and symbolism, presenting an interesting paradox given that its audience is not composed exclusively of Hindu viewers. This contradiction is deepened by the fact that Bollywood's production and content are touched by the influences of other cultures and religions, including Islam. This paper focuses specifically on the role of Islam in Bollywood films, analysing central themes and production practices and assessing whether these have changed substantially over time. Given India's complicated political, cultural, and religious history and the more global concern with Islam's meaning and significance, Islam inevitably plays a significant - and somewhat transformed - role in popular Indian cinema. However, in the films discussed here, it also carries familiar associations with terrorism, violence, and intercultural misunderstanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the role of controversial media, particularly in cinema, in shaping religious sentiments, uniting and mobilizing Hindus, and contributing to the rise of Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) in India. Topics include the impact of new-age media, historical memories, and socio-political factors on the propagation of Hindu nationalist ideologies and the socio-cultural transformations driven by digital platforms.

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Cinema dexterously explores and experiments with the myriad portrayals of women which is diversely rich; they are represented as submissive and oppressed on one hand and educated, open-minded, strong-willed on the other. However, there is a continuous change with respect to the stereotyped image and its depiction. The present paper attempts to highlight not only the different images of women but also the changed perception of the society that has exquisitely been captured in the films made in the recent context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the case for dwelling upon incidentals in films and photographs and the so-called peripheral detail in the motion picture production in India. The author argues that decentered scanning can constitute a refreshing alternative register of rilmic experience. Peripheral detail provides pause for thought for the audience despite its seeming irrelevance. The paper examines peripheral details of several motion pictures produced in India and analyzes filmmakers' strategies in making peripheral details.

The article comments on the paper "Pausing for Peripheral Detail," by Roger Cardinal. The author believes that Cardinal's stimulation exploration of what slips through the net of the narratively dictated, Gestalt-oriented literary and the so-called peripheral detail in motion pictures in India, raises many potentially productive issues for film theory and for cultural politics. His essay brings back the idea that the look is a stand-in for touch and he suggested that this hypothesis needs further elaboration and implies a two-stage process of substitution.

The article analyzes the history of cinema in India before it gains an industry status through the Bollywood and its marketization. Topics mentioned include the change of the entire Bollywood landscape after the government accorded industry status to the filmmaking business in May 1998, production of films in the country as early as in 1971 in which Mumbai serves as the center of the Indian cinema, and the union of Bollywood and cricket game.

Films showing industrial processes or crafts were popular topics in early cinema. However in the case of British India, these films were part of a larger discourse in which India was admired for its traditional crafts, while for the development of modern industries the initiative and management of the British were considered necessary. Craft films of India are therefore always constructed as album films – giving a glimpse of what is involved in the making of the object, but not showing much of the larger process. However, modern industries in India were filmed as process films, which gave ample space to understand the production process. The rhythm of the factory is thus mirrored in the rhythm of the film sequences, making the industrial films more attractive to watch than the craft films. Using the examples of a film showing crafts in Kashmir and a film showing a rope factory in Calcutta, the article argues that the differences in the films’ structures endorse the contrast between traditional crafts and modern industries found in British discourses on India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The unique nature of the relationship between popular film and music production in India has defined the nature of popular music as an industry and as a cultural commodity from 1931. This relationship solidified during the first roughly 25 years of Indian independence in response to specific industrial, regulatory, and cultural conditions; but as those conditions began to shift after 1970, the relationship became increasingly fluid. This study offers an initial understanding of the complex set of industrial, musical and cultural changes in the world of Indian popular music during a period of unprecedented change in film industry personnel, industrial structure and logic, music and film recording and consumption technologies and governmental regulation. I argue that these ultimately resulted in a series of shifts in the ideological and cultural position of film music in India's popular music culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organized around an interview with the curator of the 2009 Ahmedabad International Film Festival in India, this article inventories a number of issues germane to future discussions of the film festival as an emerging exhibition venue in India. I examine some of the existing theoretical and critical models for analyzing film festivals, and argue that the film festival should be considered as a 'medium' that behaves as a productive constraint on both film production and spectatorship. Finally, I consider the unique relation between the spectatorial behaviors encouraged within festival settings and the narrative strategies of Indian popular films, so as to interrogate their impact on the cultivation of a critically-oriented Indian film audience. I conclude by evaluating the promises and challenges of the infrastructural limitations faced by Indian film festivals for the emergence of alternative cinema publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the Turkish films. Popular Turkish film of this period is generally called "Yeşilçam films." In 1966, Turkey was fourth in terms of world film production after the U.S., India and Egypt, making 229 films. Turkish film also became very popular in other Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Iran and Iraq, but after this period of successful commercial growth Yeşilçam had, by the 1980s, practically died away. The prime reason for this downfall was the paradoxical situation that there had never been a truly powerful film industry in Turkey, despite the appearance of commercial vitality in popular films. As a result, whilst this commercial vitality during the 1960s and the 1970s made certain producers and stars rich, the foundations of the film industry remained vulnerable to fluctuations in the market. After a decade of severe recession, the mid 1990s bore witness to a remarkable revival of Turkish film in two distinct areas: a new popular films achieving considerable box-office success and what might be called an "art films" receiving critical acclaim and awards at national and international festivals.

The article examines the formation of the hybrid art of filmmaking in heterogeneous colonial and ex-colonial contexts in the adaptation of the play "Hamlet," by William Shakespeare into Bombay films in India, namely "Hamlet alias Khon ka Khoon," directed by Sohrab Modi and "Hamlet," directed by Kishore Sahu. It relates how the attempts of Modi and Sahu to reconcile the European world view with the Indian world view resulted into a reflexive awareness of both the commonalities and differences between the two world views. It describes how Modi and Sahu borrowed western narrative and stylistic codes in their adaptation of "Hamlet" from the stage to film.