Mumbai, March 15 Filmmakers Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Bejoy Nambiar expressed their concern over the declining state of "middle-of-the-road" cinema, saying that audience support and dedicated screen space will ensure its survival.
Speaking at the Red Lorry Film Festival during a session titled ‘Directors Panel: India vs the World Where Do We Stand’ on Saturday, the directors said that they aim to continue making the kind of unique films that they are making.
"Just go on to social media and start saying #wewantmiddlecinemaback. I think all of us have the power in our hands to encourage cinema that makes us like us. So, if any of our cinema is coming out, it needs word of mouth as that is such an integral part; no amount of marketing can beat that,” Tiwari, best known for films like “Nil Battey Sannata”, “Bareilly Ki Barfi”, and “Panga”, said.
The massive success of films like “Animal”, “Gadar 2”, “Dhurandhar”, and “Border 2” signals that audiences are turning up in theatres to watch big-ticket entertainers.
Nambiar said that not every director aims to make blockbusters like Ranbir Kapoor’s “Animal” and there are filmmakers like him, who are focused on narrating diverse and niche stories.
“We are not all making ‘Animal’ (kinds of films), we are making different kinds of films. We need support from the audience. Our audience has become smarter; they’re watching a lot of content. But at the same time, it's an unpredictable audience, which makes it challenging for filmmakers like us to figure out what it is that will bring them back to theatres,” Nambiar, whose latest film, “Tu Yaa Main” garnered mixed-to-positive response in theatres, said.
Another key issue, Nambiar and Iyer Tiwari spoke about, is affordable movie ticket pricing.
Comparing film distribution to the marketing of detergent, Iyer Tiwari said cinema should adopt a “pocketed” approach.
“If there’s a certain kind of cinema, which is not for all, you know, this is your target audience, and then you need to route it to that. Like, this cinema is only for Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, because this kind of story can be consumed by this audience, because they’ve seen world cinema. That’s how you know about the target audience, this is their income that they can spend (on movie tickets),” she said.
“If you have a cinema and you think the whole world needs to watch it, it’s never going to happen, because what I like making, you may not like it. Like, a person is coming from a certain margin of society may not want to watch that, so we wait for it to come on OTT. Ticket prices is a huge challenge,” the director said.
Nambiar, best known for films like “Shaitan”, “David”, and “Wazir”, echoed this sentiment and believes that audience support for middle cinema is only possible if ticket prices are stabilised.
“In our state (Maharashtra) we’ve dangerous ticket prices, like they (exhibitors) need to think of offers, like Tuesday offer (one plus one free movie ticket). Having some kind of stabilised ticket prices (is what we need), otherwise a watchman will not pay Rs. 1000 or 2,000 to watch a film. So, we need to work towards it; the government needs to help us. It’s a collective thing that needs to be figured out,” he said.
Director Ankit Sakhiya of “Laalo” fame, who was part of the panel discussion, thanked the audience for embracing his film, which is the first Gujarati movie to cross Rs. 100 crores at the box office.