Is our cinema finally becoming Indian?

Cross-pollination of talent is now breaking linguistic and cultural barriers, writes Roshmila Bhattacharya.

S S Rajamouli’s Telugu period drama, ‘RRR’, featured Tollywood’s N T Rama Rao Jr and Ram Charan, and Bollywood’s Ajay Devgn and Alia Bhatt. Atlee’s Hindi action thriller ‘Jawan’ brought together Shah Rukh Khan in a double role and south superstars Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara. ‘Animal’ by Sandeep Vanga Reddy featured Ranbir Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Rashmika Mandanna. The phenomenal success of these films has brought along a new trend. Over 25 films, in various stages of production, have germinated from this cross-pollination of talent.

Exhibitor-distributor Akkshay Rathie reminds you that such crossover films go back to the ’80s and ’90s. ‘Andhaa Kaanoon’ and ‘Hum’ brought together superstars from two different industries, Amitabh Bachchan and Rajinikanth. They have been paired again in T J Gnanavel’s Tamil film currently titled ‘Thalaivar 170’. Bachchan will also be seen with Kamal Haasan, Prabhas, Deepika Padukone and Disha Pattani in Nag Ashwin’s Hindi-Tamil dystopian sci-fi film ‘Kalki 2898 AD’. Last year, Jacqueline Fernandez was seen in an item song alongside Kichcha Sudeep in the Kannada film ‘Vikrant Rona’. In 2019, Sudeep was praised for his negative role in the Salman Khan starrer, ‘Dabbang 3’. 

Raveena Tandon and Sanjay Dutt return as Ramika Sen and Adheera along with Yash as Rocky in Chapter 3 of the Kannada film franchise, ‘K G F’. Dutt and Shilpa Shetty will also be seen as a couple in ‘KD—The Devil’, with Dhruva Sarja in the lead role.        

Murad Khetani, producer of ‘Kabir Singh’, and Priya Atlee have collaborated for an action-entertainer presented by Atlee and stars Varun Dhawan. It is helmed by Kalees, writer-director of the Tamil techno-thriller ‘Kee’. Bobby Deol appears in the Telugu period action-adventure ‘Hari Veera Mallu’ with Pawan Kalyan as the legendary outlaw. Pawan Kalyan also features in Sujeeth’s ‘OG’ which marks Emraan Hashmi’s debut in Telugu cinema.

“Today, people from different cultures and regions, speaking different languages, are coming together to make a pan-India film. When you have a film like ‘OG’ featuring actors from different industries, it brings in different audiences, adding to the buzz and the box-office numbers,” reasons Hashmi in a conversation with DH.

Shruti Haasan attributes the trend to dubbing. Even Tom Cruise and Jackie Chan have become local superstars after their films were dubbed in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. “But while these dubbed films did well financially rather than creatively, films like ‘Baahubali’, along with OTT, have now broken open the door and popularised the trend,” explains the actress.

Rathie agrees, pointing out that following ‘Bahubaali’’s success, we suddenly discovered that films which originate in a certain fraternity have the ability to crossover within India, bypassing linguistic and cultural barriers, to make a serious impact. “One blessing that came out of the pandemic was that during the lockdown, we were sitting at home consuming content from different fraternities. As a result, those in the Hindi speaking belts became familiar with Malayalam titles and those in the North, with Bengali cinema,” he says, confident that ‘War 2’ with superstars NTR Jr and Hrithik Roshan will be one of the biggest grossers ever.          

Shruti describes herself as a product of cross-pollination of talent. Her mother (Sarika), who is from Mumbai, and her father (Kamal Haasan) from Chennai, met on a set when he was doing a Hindi film. “She has acted in a Tamil and even in a Gujarati film while my father has experimented with Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and even Bengali cinema, besides Tamil and Hindi. His films had two premieres, one in Hyderabad and one in Mumbai, so we have seen all this before,” she shares.

The actress adds that she grew up watching diverse films in different languages, from Hindi and south Indian languages to English, French and even Chinese. “So, when people use terms like ‘up north’ and ‘down south’ I’m baffled, having never heard them at home where we believe we are a part of the same country and the concept of India is reflected in the storytelling,” says Shruti.

Ananth Narayan Mahadevan sees it as a positive sign that after 100-plus years, Indian cinema is no longer being equated with just Hindi cinema. The National Award-winning filmmaker who’s touring the festival circuit with a Hindi film, ‘The Storyteller’, is relieved that on trips abroad he no longer has to explain that ‘Bollywood’ is only a small sector in a country that speaks 28 languages and makes films in as many. “Having worked in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English films, I find it futile to differentiate cinema by languages. Thankfully today, the language has become a sub-title,” says the actor who played Gandhi’s father Karamchand in National Award-winning director P Seshadri’s Kannada film ‘Mohandas’.

Mahadevan, who is currently acting in S Shankar’s Telugu political action thriller ‘Game Changer’, co-starring Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Jayaram and Nassar, says that there’s a new term now, ‘Pan-Indian Cinema’, with films being announced in multiple languages, including Tamil,
Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi. “While the merger is healthy, some confusion still exists. Once the north reconciles to the fact that there’s cinema beyond Hindi and Punjabi films, accepts Prabhas, Vijay and Ram Charan as wholeheartedly as Hindi film stars, we
can finally celebrate Indian cinema,” he concludes.