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Film industry needs to be corporatised: Aamir Khan

An actor, a producer and a director mapped Bollywood's journey to Hollywood. Or at least tried to predict its future in world cinema at the India Today Conclave 2008.
 
In an afternoon that had no prepared speeches, actor Aamir Khan, director Shekhar Kapoor and Chairman and CEO of Hyde Park Entertainment Ashok Amritraj instead indulged in a conversation that explored the myriad faces the film industry portrays.

Whether it was the inevitable technological explosion that would change the way films were delivered to an audience, the need to corporatise the industry or even the paths Bollywood had to carve in order to make its presence felt in the world market. 
 

Aamir Khan, Actor, Director and Producer
Aamir wants to retain the old form of cinema and still entertain global audiences
The hype is already there in the West, said Kapoor, who was moderating the session. But there is no product to support the hype. But then, interjected Khan, Bollywood has never really looked at newer audiences because of a talented industry and a large demanding audience at home. Though, he said, newer audiences could be one of the concepts to surviving entertainment.
 
What about a director like Mira Nair, Kapoor asked.
 
Well, Nair wasn't really an Indian director appealing to an Indian audience, Khan answered.
 
So, how could Bollywood appeal to a western audience just like China did with its Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, a film that raked in $300 million at the box office?
 
Amritraj answered Kapoor's question. China, he said, "has martial arts that make it more accessible to a western audience." Bollywood's song and dance routine however, he said, "makes it slightly inaccessible to a guy in Iowa." 
 
But Khan said, "It has to happen organically. You can't plan it." Each filmmaker, he said, has to decide what the audience wants, the issues to address and whether the filmmaker wants to entertain a world audience. "The form of old Indian cinema," he said, "is very dear to me. Given an opportunity, I want to retain the form and still entertain the world audience."
 
The problem, Amritraj said, also lies in the many movies directors make. "There is too much money and too few good movies," he said. Also, compared to the west, the methods of distribution in India were archaic, he said.
 
Piracy also factored into the conversation. Amritraj supported the theatres, even though, he admitted people were moving toward internet downloading.
 
Khan said though India was bad at controlling piracy, it was because it took too long for a product to be out. And people just didn't want to wait. And while corporatisation of the film industry was important, it was at a nascent stage.
 
"If I went to them and said I want to do a film on childcare and education," corporate houses would say no, Khan said. Or even a film like Lagaan that "broke all the requirements of the Indian commercial film industry," he said. When a corporate house agrees to back a film like that, that's when it has matured, he added.

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