BOLLYWOOD 2023: RESURGENCE ON THE CARDS?

Four ace filmmakers take stock of the situation of Hindi cinema is in and talk about the way forward 

- Ananya Ghosh

The last three years have been an interesting, if chaotic, period for movies as well as movie-going audiences. Pandemic-induced lockdowns shut down movie theatres, which in turn served as a catalyst for the OTT boom and a wide variety of content — regional and international alike — that gave Bollywood a run for its money. Even with theatres opening up, Bollywood movies mostly failed to lure the audiences back in.  

“I don’t think people are not coming to the theatre because they are disinterested in cinema, they are not coming because they are more interested in cinema than ever before. People are so exposed to different kinds of content today — they have access to cinema across the world — that they are now talking about the VFX, the screenplay, and the technicalities of cinema in a rather insightful way. We need to introspect and figure out what this new film-literate audience wants,” points out Abhishek Sharma. 

According to Harshavardhan Kulkarni, even good films are not safe today. “2022 has been a strange year. Earlier you could say that if you make a really good film, let it connect with the audience and it will get you the box office numbers. Bhediya was a good movie, but it didn’t work. Now nobody can predict what will happen. And that, according to me, is a good thing. If no formula works for quite some time, genuine films will emerge.”