Mumbai, March 15: Actor Riteish Deshmukh has called for significant changes in how Maharashtra views its cinema. The actor attended a special event organized by the Samajwadi Party, and said that Marathi cinema in Maharashtra is declining due to the demand for Hindi cinema.
The actor said that it was a Marathi-speaking man, Dadasaheb Phalke, who laid the foundation of Indian cinema, but after a century, the theatrical system has become skewed in favor of Hindi cinema over Marathi in theaters in Maharashtra.
He said, "The film industry was born here in Maharashtra, in Mumbai, and a Marathi man, Dadasaheb Phalke, gave birth to it. I am not trying to create a divide here, but people from other parts of the country came here and made this their own, and that is why the headquarters of the film industry then became Mumbai, and regional cinema began to develop in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka."
He further mentioned, "You will see the same in Karnataka and the Malayalam film industry, but in Maharashtra, Hindi is the first choice, and Marathi is the second choice, and in between, it has been further decreasing. If you look at the population of Maharashtra, 10 to 11 crore people speak Marathi, which is more than the population of Andhra and Tamil Nadu. Marathi films are made for up to INR 3-7 crores, but when you go to watch in the theater, you have to spend as much for tickets as for a INR 100 crore film made in Hindi, due to budget restrictions, Marathi films could not be made in the way they are made in Hindi."
He explained the economics behind the Hindi and Marathi film industry, as he said, "When people go to watch a film, and they have the option of spending Rs 200 on a Rs 5 crore film or Rs 100 crore on a film, people choose a Rs 100 crore Hindi film, and that is why the Marathi film industry has shrunk. So, when I started production, my father said that you are working in the Hindi film industry, but what about Marathi, that is why it has been 10 to 11 years of my film company, and we have made 6 films, and all 6 films are in Marathi."
"Although I have worked in the Hindi film industry, I felt that for my people, films should be made for their region, so that they can see them. I did not make films on the budget of Hindi films, but according to the Marathi films that were being made, we spent more and tried to make a bigger film," he added.