Jharkhand will be the last state to open cinemas with cinemas being allowed to open on 1st March in Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad etc. It will be a 50% occupancy but that should be pushed up to 100% in time like in most places.

India now has 100% occupancy allowed in most places with the real concern as far as Hindi cinema goes being Maharashtra which is close to 30% of the Indian theatrical business for a Hindi film. The state has seen a rise in case lately which means the 50% occupancy rule likely to stay in Maharashtra for the time being.

There is one month to go till the release of some Hindi releases which can bring in some footfalls so the hopefully the Coronavirus trajectory in Maharashtra will be downward by then. 

The situation across India in terms of occupancy at the moment is as follows.

It is pretty clear that Nizam/Andhra and Tamil Nadu are ahead of other places in terms of a returning audience. Both these circuits are giving double their normal contribution for a Hollywood film at present while the rest of circuits are doing less. The other circuit doing better is West Bengal as that had a early start with good footfalls during Puja in October.

Tamil Nadu is the first state to allow 100% occupancy which is great news. But it's also surprising as it was expected that the Centre would make the decision to allow full occupancy and then the state would decide if the pandemic issue in their state allows full occupancy.

The hope will be that all goes well when Tamil films release on Pongal as this will mean more states allowing full occupancy. What will not be needed is a rise in infection rate in Tamil Nadu after allowing 100% occupancy as that will put plans back across India. Europe saw big rises in infections after sporting events in February but that was as crowds of 50,000 plus gathered and obviously it is not likely that this much crowd will gather together at cinemas.

The ratio of WONDER WOMAN 1984 with the ratio of Hollywood films in 2019 in brackets is as follows. Odisha and Kerala have seen cinemas opening in January 2021 but there are no collections of WONDER WOMAN 1984 as yet while Rajasthan remains shut. The circuits performing better than normal are in bold.

Against odds, films in regional Indian languages keep getting made. Anuj Sharma , a former salesman, is a major star in films made in Chhattisgarhi language. He has delivered several boxoffice hits such as Mor Chhaiya Bhuinya (My shadow and earth) and Raja Chhattisgarhiya over the past two decades. The actor-singer, a Padma Shri recipient, talks to Avijit Ghosh about the state of Chhattisgarhi cinema
Avijit Ghosh (THE TIMES OF INDIA; March 15, 2019)

How’s the Chhattisgarh film industry doing these days?
We have been struggling since the industry came to life with Kahi Debe Sandesh (Convey the Message), an intercaste love story, in 1965. There are many reasons for that. No television channel buys a film’s satellite rights, a major source of revenue these days. In some cases, the companies which have bought the video rights also exploit the digital rights. Call it innocence or ignorance, many producers were initially not aware of these differences. It took time for them to realise that home video rights, satellite rights, digital rights are different things.

Who are the core audience of your films? How much does an average Chhattisgarhi film cost?
The low income category people are the bulk of our viewers. Rickshaw pullers, daily wagers, marginal farmers – these are the people who spend their hard earned money on our films. A film’s cost depends on its cast and production values. A low budget film would roughly cost Rs 25 lakh while a high budget film can be made for anywhere between Rs 50 to Rs 75 lakh. The number of films produced each year varies from 7 to 14.

Where are these films shown?
They are shown in about 50 single screen theatres in 40 centres across the state. There are several multiplexes in Chhattisgarh but they don’t give any priority to local films. Some of them are also shown in Nagpur. Towns with Chhattisgarh migrant labour, such as Jammu and Jamshedpur, also run our films. In Odisha, hit films are shown in places like Khariar Road. Many Chhattisgarhi feature films are available for free viewing on YouTube. Some have over 6 million views. The video companies are making money. But they don’t want to share the revenue with the producers. Melas are another good source of revenue for our films, especially during festivals. In these melas, touring talkies organise ticketed shows of Chhattisgarhi films.

On video broadcasting sites, several people have made and posted their own short feature films. Some have got a million views.
People are expressing their creative energy in several ways, rather than allow it to die for lack of opportunity or shortage of finance. Profit or loss, people have a passion for making films in our parts. Twenty years ago, when I said that I want to earn a livelihood by acting in Chhattisgarhi films, I was told you are crazy. Chhattisgarh doesn’t have a proper professional film training institute. Earlier we got technicians from Odisha or Mumbai. They still work here but we are not entirely dependent on them anymore. By working in films over the years, a self-taught generation has emerged. Today we have hundreds of technicians in every department of filmmaking.

It is said that like most Bhojpuri films, Chhattisgarhi films have lost their regional flavour.
Like everywhere else, people in Chhattisgarh too have changed. Our language also has changed with the passage of time. New films should reflect these changes. New experiments keep happening. You must evolve.

Why are mainstream films not made on sensitive topics such as Maoism or exploitation of Adivasis?
Our audience is made of people who must save money from their meagre wages to watch a film. They are the ones who help us put up a “House full” board. They are the ones who clap and whistle during a movie show. We have to fully entertain them. Our films are loud. The actors speak their dialogues loudly, they laugh with gusto. Refined, upper-class people don’t weep loudly; common people do. We make films in tune with their taste. But if we start showing films in multiplexes, films could change stylistically because we would have to keep their tastes in mind too.

How can the state government help the industry?
Last year, the Raman Singh government announced Chhattisgarh Film Vikas Nigam (Chhattisgarh Film Development Corporation) for the state. It would be nice if the new state government comes out with a policy which ensures that Chhattisgarhi films get preferential treatment in multiplexes and on prime time in local TV channels.

You are also a musician. What is your take on popular Chhattisgarhi music?
Our music has a distinctive flavour which people love. I have also started a band called Aarug, which means untouched in Chhattisgarhi. We use traditional instruments such as tabla, dholak, shehnai, bansuri and gudum, an instrument popular among tribals. The most modern instrument used by our band is banjo. Last year we performed in Fiji. Everyone loved the shows. 

The actor plays a journalist in the film which also features Hollywood actors Stephen Baldwin and Shari Rigby
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 20, 2019)

Sharman Joshi is playing a reporter in his next, The Least Of These: The Graham Staines Story, which dates back to 1999 when an Australian missionary known for his charitable work with lepers in Odisha was burnt alive allegedly by Bajrang Dal fundamentalists. According to locals, it was because they believed he was luring his Hindu patients into Christianity. Along with Staines, his two sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), were also charred to death while they were asleep in their station wagon at Manoharpur village on the night of January 23.

Talking about the film in which he is asked to launch an undercover investigation into the missionary’s activities, Sharman says that Staines’ story is relevant today, when tolerance is the need of the hour. “What happened was tragic,” he adds.

In 2003, Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, Staines’ widow, Gladys, forgave him, hoping he would repent and reform. She had continued to live in India, caring for leprosy patients until 2004 when she returned to Australia. The following year, she was awarded the Padma Shri.

Sharman admits that he didn’t have a reference point for his character. “But human emotions are the same all over the world and depicting them on screen is always a challenge. I was very young when the incident took place but I remember I was moved by it and wondered why it happened. While working on the film, the mystery unravelled for me, like it did for my character,” he explains.

The film has been shot in Hyderabad, Odisha and a small valley in Andhra Pradesh. The American-Indian production, directed by Aneesh Daniel, also features Hollywood actors Stephen Baldwin and Shari Rigby. “I had’t worked with mainstream American actors apart from Alice Patten in Rang De Basanti, before this. It was a delight to work with Stephen and Shari. We were not sure what to expect as actors from both ends, but Stephen and I exchanged notes, because it was a different world for him shooting in India,” admits Sharman.

His next project is also an Indo-American venture. “We’ll shoot the film in Pondicherry,” he shares, adding, “We’ve also bought the rights of this West End production, The Play That Goes Wrong, and it’s currently showing all over.” 

Filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur started his Film Heritage Foundation in 2014, which has since introduced over 150 individuals to the highly specialised world of film preservation. He talks to Mohua Chatterjee about the shortage of trained archivists in India and how to fix it
Mohua Chatterjee (THE TIMES OF INDIA; November 2, 2018)

Why did you think of taking up preserving films when the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) is there for the purpose?
Countries like France, Italy, Germany, the UK and US to name a few, have several film archives for preservation of their moving image heritage and very few of these archives are run by government or are dependent solely on government funds. India has an over 100-year-old film history and we are the most prolific film industry in the world, besides being one of the most diverse. It would be impossible for a single archive to preserve even a fraction of the best films that we produce.

Film preservation is a highly specialized field that requires trained archivists. NFAI was run by P K Nair, for whom it was a passionate obsession, but he was one of a kind. There were no trained archivists or curators to take over after him.

My decision to establish Film Heritage Foundation, a non-government organisation, was an outcome of discussions with the film industry as we felt we should start our own movement, rather than wait for government to do all the work. Many more film archives and public-private partnerships have to be encouraged if we are to safeguard our films.

How many films have you preserved and how do you store them?
Currently we have a growing film collection of about 300 titles on 35mm, 16mm and 8mm formats that is preserved in a temperature-controlled storage facility. We maintain films of leading personalities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shyam Benegal, N N Sippy, Mani Ratnam, Kumar Shahani, Govind Nihalani, Chitra Palekar, Onir, Shaad Ali, Sumitra Bhave, Sunil Sukthankar among others. The films are periodically checked, cleaned and repaired with inspection reports on their condition.

Every day we get a call asking for help to rescue films. Recently I was invited by the Odisha State Archives to look at their collection and advise them. We found hundreds of films, some very important ones, lying abandoned and in urgent need of preservation. This is why advocacy is a priority for our foundation as we try to reach out to different parts of the country to spread the word that films, and especially those on celluloid, need to be saved.

Tell us about your documentary film Celluloid Man?
I always had an interest in preservation – something that I learnt from my father. I had read an interview with Martin Scorsese about the Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna, Italy where they screened restored films. I was fascinated by this and attended the festival.

On my return from Bologna, I went to meet P K Nair in Pune for whom building the collection of the NFAI had been a single-minded purpose. This meeting brought back all the old memories of the time I spent at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) when Nair saheb had shown us so many wonderful films. Thanks to him we began to love and live for films.

So Celluloid Man was really an organic process. It was a journey of discovery. Nair saheb had an encyclopaedic memory not just of the films in the Archive, but of all the films he had seen in his lifetime.

The history of Indian cinema as well as the terrible loss of this heritage unfolded over many hours and days of conversations with Nair sahib, and is captured in Celluloid Man. But I realised that to really make a change, I couldn’t stop with the film, which was just the first step and gave birth to the foundation in a sense.

As for your seven-hour film on Jiri Menzel, you may get international festival acclaim but how will you show it to regular audiences?
I make films based on what I feel at the moment and what inspires me. It is not about indulgence or need. Why should there be an ending? This film has been a labour of love that has been eight years in the making. It took me almost a year of phone calls and emails to convince Menzel to meet me in a cafe in Prague in 2010. And so began a conversation and a friendship that has culminated in a seven-hour film that not only explores the deceptively whimsical comic films of Menzel, but also discovers the fascinating world of the Czechoslovak New Wave. This was a movement peopled by brilliant artists paradoxically making films funded by an oppressive regime, beautifully disguising their subversiveness through humour and artistry.

I would like to show it to general audiences. I firmly believe that we should not underestimate our audiences. The journey of this film has just begun and I hope that it will find its own audience. 

IANS (BOMBAY TIMES; September 23, 2018)

A R Rahman and Gulzar have come together to create the official song for Hockey Men’s World Cup, to be held in Bhubaneswar this year. The Odisha government roped in Rahman to compose the song, titled Jai Hind Hind, Jai India, which has been penned by Gulzar. “Nothing says India more than our beloved sport hockey. And nothing is more exciting than the world’s biggest hockey tournament happening right here, on our turf,” Rahman said in a statement.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, “We are delighted to have Rahman compose the song. It will be an honour to have him perform live in Bhubaneswar. He is the voice of India and now with this song, the voice of India is the voice of the World Cup.”

About Gulzar, he said, “We are also fortunate to have Gulzar saab add his poetic magic to the composition. Coming together of these two legends will not only inspire the players but will also get the entire nation together to support this wonderful game.”