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The article challenges the misconception that all Indian films are Bollywood films and highlights the diversity of Indian cinema, which includes over 40 language film industries. It argues against labeling a Telugu film like RRR as Bollywood, emphasizing its regional identity. The article also addresses the claim that RRR aspires to be a Bollywood film, noting that the friendship theme is not unique to Bollywood. It discusses the issue of regional pride and recognition in Indian cinema, particularly in relation to the success of RRR, and calls for a broader understanding of Indian cinema beyond Bollywood. [Extracted from the article]

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Scientific studies of the elements that influence the box office performance of Indian films have generally concentrated on post-production elements, such as those discovered after a film has been completed or released, and notably for Bollywood films. Only fewer studies have looked at regional film industries and pre-production factors, which are elements that are known before a decision to greenlight a film is made. This study looked at Indian films using natural language processing and machine learning approaches to see if they would be profitable in the pre-production stage. We extract movie data and English subtitles (as an approximation to the screenplay) for the top five Indian regional film industries: Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood, and Sandalwood, as they make up a major portion of the Indian film industry's revenue. Subtitle Vector (Sub2Vec), a Paragraph Vector model trained on English subtitles, was used to embed subtitle text into 50 and 100 dimensions. The proposed approach followed a two-stage pipeline. In the first stage, Return on Investment (ROI) was calculated using aggregated subtitle embeddings and associated movie data. Classification models used the ROI calculated in the first step to predicting a film's verdict in the second step. The optimal regressor–classifier pair was determined by evaluating classification models using F 1 -score and Cohen's Kappa scores on various hyperparameters. When compared to benchmark methods, our proposed methodology forecasts box office success more accurately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian movie industry is the largest movie industry based on the number of movies produced per year. It is also the most diverse movie industry.It has been examined in a recent study that only a few of the movies achieved success. Revenue uncertainties have created immense pressure on the motion picture industry. Researchers and film producers continually feel a necessity to have some expert systems that predict the movie's success probability preceding its production with reasonable accuracy. The diversity of the Indian movie industry makes the problem more difficult. Only a few researchers worked on Indian films, but most of them are targeted prerelease forecasting or have low prediction accuracy. This study focused on Indian movies and concentrated on the upcoming film's success as soon as a quotient (director, cast) signed an agreement. This proposed forecasting has been considered as the earliest forecasting. Our study retrieved and used the last 30 years of Indian movie information covering all India's regional movies.We had judicially chosen some of the movie's intrinsic features and introduced a set of novel derived features to increase the forecasting accuracy. We had proposed a K-fold Hybrid Deep Ensemble learning Model (KHDEM), which includes Deep Learning models (DLM) and ensemble learning models. Finally, We made the prediction using a Logistic Regression (LR) classifier. We had implemented a binary classification model and achieved 96% accuracy, which outperforms all the benchmark models. The introduction of our derived features had improved the accuracy by 17.62%.This study highlights the potential of predictive and prescriptive data analytics in information systems to support industry decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of Bollywood (the Indian Hindi film industry) on the national psyche as well as its international popularity cannot be overrated. So is the music that is an integral part of it. It outlives the movie and then becomes a part of the everyday life of people, being played in public places, at religious festivals, in personal and professional functions and interestingly being even adapted to other forms of expression (like bhajans/devotional music). At a more dangerous level, it surreptitiously births, embeds and reinforces stereotypes becoming the palimpsest that serves to define standards expected and exacted from women. This not only thus shapes the approach towards women but also significantly impacts women's approach towards themselves. By referring to some of the popular and oft recalled Bollywood Hindi songs across the decades, this researcher would like to unearth the palimpsest and decode how it results in the 'cast'ing convention and becomes the kaleidoscope through which Indian womanhood is viewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against many odds, the Hausa film industry alias Kannywood has come of age. The film industry survives several pressing challenges from within and outside Nigeria, perhaps more than its counterparts anywhere else. Although there is no denying that the quality of its output has significantly improved, its survival has little or nothing to do with that. Many critics, including the Motion Pictures Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MOPPAN) leadership, call 'bad' films, are still being made. Romantic movies, laden with a typical and predictable pattern of the love triangle, song and dance sequences among other appropriated and plagiarized Bollywood modalities, remain the favourite of producers and arguably that of the audience. However, according to some surveys, such films lack merit in the realm of critical film discourse in Africa and beyond. This article is set out to discuss this issue through a content analysis of a recent film titled Sareena (Nuhu 2019). The movie, released in 2019, is a bloated, implausible melodrama and a direct mimicry of a famous Indian film, Kaabil (Gupta 2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has a longstanding reputation in the film industry, whereas South Korean films have only recently achieved notable success globally. Despite their significant positions in the global film market, there are very few studies that compare and analyze the competitive advantage of the two countries in the film industry. This paper adopts the ABCD model as a complementary framework to the two mainstream theories of strategic management (i.e., industry-based view and resource-based view) to analyze and compare the competitiveness of the industrial success of emerging countries. For the empirical test, this paper uses natural language processing methods to operationalize the theoretical model. After collecting text data from news articles in English related to the Korean and Indian film industries, this study analyzes how many keywords with regards to the 8 sub-factors of the ABCD model are mentioned in the articles using the document similarity measurement. The results reveal the different but complementary areas of strengths. India has higher competitiveness in the factor of Agility while Korea has higher competitiveness in Convergence. This study also highlights the areas for further development and potential partnership between the two countries by leveraging each other's strengths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In India, a popular trope is adapting cultural myths and religious iconographies into visceral images of the monster in literary and visual representations. Cinematic representations of the Indian monster are modelled on existing folklore narratives and religious tales where the idea of the monster emerges from cultural imagination and superstitions of the land. Since it rationalizes several underlying archetypes in which gods are worshipped in their monstrous identities and disposition, the trope of the monster is used in cinema to indicate the transformation from an ordinary human figure to a monstrous human Other. This paper examines cinematic adaptations of monster figures in Malayalam cinema, the South Indian film industry of Kerala. The cultural practice of religious rituals that worship monstrous gods is part of the collective imagination of the land of Kerala through which films represent fearsome images of transformed humans. This article argues that cultural monsters are human subjects that take inspiration from mythical monster stories to perform in a terrifying way. Their monstrous disposition is a persona that is both a powerful revelation of repressed desires and a manifestation of the resistance against certain cultural fears associated with them. The analysis of several Malayalam films, such as Kaliyattam (1997) Manichithrathazhu (1993) and Ananthabhadram (2005), reveals how film performance adapts mythological narrative elements to create new cultural intertexts of human monsters that are psychotically nuanced and cinematically excessive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

India has long been known for its prestigious Mumbai-based film industry, namely Bollywood, and remains by far the largest producer of films in the world. With the growing global reach of Indian cinema, this study looks at an intriguing Indian-film fever over the last decade in the newly discovered market of China. Through examining key factors that make Indian films appealing to Chinese and exploring the opportunities and challenges of Indian cinema in China, this article draws upon insights gained from the narratives of local audiences. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with 32 Indian-film audiences residing across 14 different cities in mainland China. Thematic analysis identified the following five appealing factors, which explain why the Chinese enjoy Indian films: content-driven story, social values, star power, audience reviews and cultural connections. While a comprehensive list of opportunities was derived showing the potential future of Bollywood in China, results found that China's unique institutional context and an ongoing India–China geopolitical tensions also present challenges, which in turn add to the overall complexity of films' success in the Chinese market. This article argues the powerful role of Bollywood in bridging cultures and improving India–China ties, as Indian films have made Chinese people more aware of India in a favourable way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indian film, pandemic and the road ahead Many Indian production houses have stopped shooting for TV programs and films. "I have to keep making films in my country so that it gets established as an industry", said Dadasaheb Phalke, known as the father of the Indian film industry. Issues like blackmailing of tickets, piracy of films, unorganized ways of financing, censorship and government regulations made it difficult for filmmakers to make their films independently. [Extracted from the article]

The success of many Bollywood films has been dependent on the female characters of the individual films, which have seen their role develop from being just the eye candy for the audience to being the central character of the storyline. These genres of 'women-oriented' films made in every era of 100 years of the Indian film industry but their percentage has been less. The last decade from 2010 to 2020 also saw many such feministic oriented Bollywood films made on urban as well as rural issues about women. A few biopics on female sports stars, some on health issues faced by rural and urban women, some on women achievement stories at the national level and the list goes on for the experimental roles written exclusively for women actors in Bollywood. Cinema wields a remarkable command on the public and shapes public view as compared to other mediums. Looking at this 'power-wielding' capability of the film as a medium one would question the accountability of the medium and also periodically assess the medium on various parameters like treatment of Indian women in films; actual or fictionalisation of female characters; addressing the issues of Indian urban as well as rural women and many more. This paper analyses the subject plots and characterisation of a few women-oriented films made in Bollywood between 2015 to 2019. The films chosen are of the unique subject plots they present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 paper, I investigate Indian filmmaking that emerges from the encounter between urban experience and documentary practice to examine how Indian feminist critique responds to neoliberal discourses of urbanism and gender. I consider the analysis of urbanism in Sameera Jain's documentary My Own City (2011) which depicts how women become "out of place" in neoliberal cities by focusing on the gendering of urban temporality, mobility and belonging, in relation to which women's subjectivities and performances are mediated in the nation's capital New Delhi. In the second section, I conceptualize the use of a deliberate strategy of place-specific performance in the film as "emplacement" which enables a visible field of gender performances and observable mutations of both, subject and space. In contrast to documentary staging or re-enactment, conceptualized as emplacement, the audiovisual recording of complex relations of "becoming" allows place-specific ecologies of material, sensory and social environments to be considered together in the construction of gender. Following the film, the paper outlines provocations regarding critical ways of conceptualizing place in how cultural forms like documentary represent gender in relation to geographies and environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the incorporation of new media screens in filmic narratives of the Indian screen and their influence in crafting a new cinematic experience. In examining these digital intrusions, this paper locates the contemporary Indian cinema screen in and as part of a post-globalized hypervisual and connected world, which articulates a new imagination and links itself to the present and ubiquitous digital screenscape of urban life. A close reading of three Indian popular films-3G - A Killer Connection (2013), Table No. 21 (2013), and Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (Love, Sex and Betrayal, 2010)-, which integrate a range of new media screens in their narratives, reveals how the intrusion of the digital into the original filmic screen not only influences its aesthetics but also establishes a psychological territory that shapes and affects the sensory experience of film. This interlacing of the digital and the cinematic expands the spatiotemporal coordinates of the film experience, illuminating the cinema screen in a range of possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers introductory remarks on the position of the Dalit in Indian cinema. It starts with the observation that the Indian film industry is an inherently caste-based, biased, mechanised product of technological industrialisation in which Dalit inclusion is not a moral concern. The mainstream film industry in India delivers the desires and principles of market and society by excluding a Dalit framework outright—a problem now being addressed by the entry of an explicitly Dalit cinema. By briefly looking at two films, Fandry (2013) and Sairat (2016), both written and directed by Dalit film-maker Nagraj Manjule, I offer a critical reading of ‘Dalit Cinema’. Taking the work of Manjule, a maverick film-maker who is establishing a new discourse of Dalit-centred socio-culturism, I demonstrate the extent to which caste narratives are absent in the Indian film industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on how the Indian entertainment industry has played a unique role in the marketing of 'India Inc.' to the outside world since the Government of India accorded 'industry' status to the business of filmmaking in 1998. Specifically, this article discusses how one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world survived decades of mismanagement to acquire the status of a highly sought-after marketing platform by different entities - both Indian and international. The author invokes special discussion on how the 'marriage of convenience' between the Indian film world and the game of cricket that added fuel to the marketization of India Inc. and concludes with several interesting ideas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Marathi cinema has witnessed a remarkable moment recently when Sairat (The Wild, Manjule, 2016) broke box-office records, with collections touching the 100 Cr. (INR, one Billion). Sairat and Fandry (Pig, Manjule, 2014) are films that present narratives cantered on caste marginalization in rural Maharashtra. In depicting the realities of marginal existence Manjule has mobilized the industrial tendencies of mainstream filmmaking, thus opening up the films for a wider public circulation, and the consequent social discourses arising from it. The route to this, however, is through the evocative portrayal of marginal subjectivities that has largely remained stereotypical in the history of Marathi cinema. This article argues that marginal narratives and subjectivity in Sairat and Fandry are a reification of serious themes that, in the context of multiplex-centric, neo-liberal film culture, seem to posit moments of resistance. The article deliberates with two questions that the films have thrown up: first is the notion of marginal subjectivities. The subjective experience of being socially marginal, which gets highlighted through the story of the lead characters, is of significance here. The narrative articulation of the marginal experience is identified by reading of certain poignant moments in the films. Second, the extratextual, public discourses and events after the films were released are situated to highlight how Fandry and Sairat emerge from a certain social entanglement, and are in turn instrumental in affirming their own commoditized versions. The interviews of the director, various reality-TV events and some indicative discourses on the social media are discussed to consider how the cinema becomes relevant as the site for a critique of the Marathi social realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research article focuses on how the Indian film industry has helped market "India Inc." to the outside world since the Govt. of India accorded 'industry' status to the business of film-making in 1998. Specifically, this article focuses on how the biggest film industry in the world went through decades of chaotic and unprofessional managerial regimes to acquire the status of one of the most soughtafter marketing platforms by different entities--both Indian and international. We also discuss how the 'marriage of convenience' between Indian film world and the game of cricket added fuel to the marketization of the Indian film industry, and overall, this article leaves the reader with several interesting and groundbreaking ideas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research on the role of Indian films, Bollywood and Punjabi films, and British networks in the shaping of Indian Sikh diaspora in Novellara, Italy, focusing on the association of films with issues of migration and cultural identity. It suggests that the modern international subjectivities are reshaped by mass migration and mass media, with mass-mediated imagination as the critical agent in reshaping of Indian Sikh diasporic identity.

Despite the long history of the export and exhibition of Indian films in Southeast Asia, a systematic documentation of how Hindi and Tamil films from India found their way into the region has yet to be undertaken. Theatrical exhibition of Indian films is reported to have sharply declined or ended since the late 1970s in their traditional markets in Malaya, Ceylon, British East Africa, Burma, Persian Gulf Ports, Thailand and South Vietnam. Yet films continued to be circulated through formal and informal networks such as video parlours, CD shops, television and, lately, on the internet. Although Singapore has the unique distinction of being the only Southeast Asian country, which still has a few theatres exclusively dedicated to screening Indian films, theatrical exhibition is not the only medium through which they are circulated. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2010, this paper contrasts the formal distribution of Indian films with their informal circulation through which they “leak” into the multi-ethnic spaces of the global city. Drawing on photographs, exhibits, interviews, reports and observations, the essay focuses on television, CD shops, lending libraries and the internet through which Indian films are disseminated in Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the presence of Hindi films in the Soviet Union in the 1950s which indicates the historical and social changes following the death of communist premier Joseph Stalin in 1953. The years from 1954 until 1964 was called the Thaw years and were marked by the de-Stalinization efforts of the new premier Nikita Khrushchev. It relates the relationship between the Soviet Union and India during the last years of the Stalin era. The large-scale promotion of Indian popular cinema was established during the regime of Khrushchev.

Professor J.A. Mangan's ability to inspire confidence is an object lesson to any scholar who aspires to study critically issues and themes myopically considered unimportant until in the recent past. The concentration, insight and passion which he has demonstrated in leading his discipine for decades are qualities that I greatly admire. Indeed, had it not been for our interaction at St John's College, Oxford, which I still cherish, I would never have written on sport. I am delighted to contribute this chapter to his Festschrift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the understandings of the nature of Indian film as a social science phenomenon, given the diverse, complex and cultural landscape. It mentions that the film in India has been treated with intellectual indifference or amused tolerance despite its technical and cinematic evolution. It says that Indian cinema lacks a view of film as a medium of communications and its different aspects of interaction with audience. It discusses the economic enigma of film making and the ability of a film to draw a large volume of audience.