1. raw talent takes a loooooong time to get recognized – the best example being Vishal Bharadwaj – even at the time of Maachis, he was a proven wonder as a composer, but Bollywood being Bollywood, did NOT encourage this genuine talent (another example, see how the prodigiously talented Kamal Hassan was unceremoniously kicked out)- and hence VB did not have any takers – had he been less talented, he would have been grabbed by every other filmmaker in Bollywood! but VB has proven his mettle, in spite of that, thanks largely to his undeniable talent!

2. several offbeat filmmakers like Sudhir Mishra, Madhur Bhandarkar etc never get the spotlight (as much as the glorified Johars, Chopras get) at all – in this context, our media has a large share of the blame

3. our media is not good cinema savvy – either our journalists resort to blind sycophancy (just see the way Raja Sen of rediff.com, so obnoxiously hypes Bachchan every other time he gets an oppurtunity), or they take it so personally (example Khaled Mohammad, who writes good things about stars whom he ‘likes’!) – there is no objecitivity and constructive critical evaluation of movies

4. very few film personalities have a stage/theatre background – contrastingly, several people from stage/theatre background in the US and UK make it big onscreen too – once again this is happening because of the big stars not letting such talent a chance – for example, Manoj Bajpai is zillion times more talented than Abhishek Bachchan, but Bajpai does not have someone like Amitabh to back him! Abhishek has acted in more than a dozen movies and is still ‘maturing’! same is the case with Irfan Khan, Atul Kulkarni and several others

4.most often than not, Indian cinema is grossly mistaken to be BOLLYWOOD ALONE, which refers to the Hindi film industry! that is entirely incorrect – there has got to be ways in which movies from all parts of India are shown ,first to our own people so that we become aware of our own movies!!

5.many of our enthusiastic filmmakers (like Ram Gopal Verma) with some good ideas, start off well, but at some point of time, perhaps, in their desire to excel, overlook the fundamental prerequisites for creative cinema – going back to the workshop and doing some groundwork/homework – which is where they fail – they hardly rethink their priorities

6.the scripts in our movies are rarely planned well and sketched out well – unlike in other industries, where often there is serious cross-consultations with other colleagues at least for constructively evaluating the scripts

7.last but not the least, the entire film fraternity in India have failed to understand that the Indian middleclass is gaining increasing exposure to world cinema thanks to the internet mainly and the world is getting smaller and smaller – this percentage of people is definitely higher than how it was 20 years ago – as an audience, we are all receptive to creative filmmaking, but not dumb movies, in the name of doing something creative/different- this is something our filmmakers just dont take into account at all- true that we do have an audience in rural areas who never get to watch international cinema and therefore cannot match, contrast and judge – but that is no excuse to make dumb movies, but we still make them

A combination of all these factors make up the present state of Indian cinema!

While it’s really tempting to take on the phrase “bland arty film,” I know more or less what you mean, so fine.

I don’t think either Salaam Bombay or Kannathil Muthamittal fits into the “bland arty” genre, unless by “bland arty” you mean “isn’t at least 3 hrs. long with heavy doses of patriarchy, patriotism, pretension, lotsa skin, or Shah Rukh Khan’s eyebrows furrowing over the course of the film in a valiant but desperate attempt to unite and become one.”

In my experience, Indian film to the average American consumer is an escape into an ideal world of fun-filled adventures rolling down snow-capped mountains while wearing bright colors. Interrupt this daydream with one sliver of social commentary and half the appeal immediately disappears.

(As for the organizing frustrations, I totally hear you. I’ve been there, done that. What can you expect from SASA kids and the average white gazer?)

I co-organized a film festival in college a few years ago for our South Asian Students Association. Documentaries attracted 5-10 people at most. This was especially embarrassing in the case of Rakesh Sharma’s “Final Solution,” for which the director came and presented to an audience of 7 in a space which could hold a few hundred…

Feature films like Salaam Bombay and Kannathil Muthamittal brought in maybe 25-30 people. But when it came to Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, we packed the largest space available in college with about 300 people. While it was certainly fun, it was overall just really pathetic and depressing.

A small triumph came, however, at the end of the year, when we invited Biju Mathew to our end-of-year banquet. He gave his makki-di-roti & sarson-da-saag speech, presenting cultural appropriation in an explicit form: the same people who denigrate New York immigrant cabbies as dirty, smelly, wall-pee-ers are the same ones who line up outside an oft driver-frequented dhaba on Lexington Avenue because they’d read a review of the place in the New York Times. The Times article specifically mentioned those two dishes, and sure enough they were the first two to be completely depleted, leaving the dhaba’s regular customers in a lurch.

He gave this talk on literally devouring certain aspects of a culture while rejecting/ostracizing other aspects (like its people) while a hall full of mainly white college students scarfed down their Desi dinner.

It was beautiful.

Speaking of Hazaron Khwahishen, does anyone actually know people who were lefty activists in the 70s as depicted in that film? My parents were much too goody-goody to have been part of that crowd but I was pretty struck (as were some of my friends) at the extremely liberal social and sexual norms depicted. Not that people weren’t sneaking around having sex, which of course they were, but the way the parents (particularly the family of the main female character) don’t blink an eye when she comes home with a male friend after having stayed out all night.

amazing movie (you can listen to swanand kirkire’s bavra mann here: Bavra Mann 3)

I dont have *much* patience for song and dance sequences anymore in most films but that’s because I think Ive just outgrown them

The old is still gold.