NEWS reports have it that different associations of the Bangladesh Film Industry organised a rally in front of the Jatiya Press Club in protest of the commercial release of Bombay made Hindi and Urdu films in Bangladesh. Apparently the Bollywood mainstream film ‘Wanted’ is going to hit over 50 cinemas across the country this month and three more Bollywood films are in the pipeline to be released amid continuous protests of Dhallywood directors, producers and artists. Reports further showed that 19 Dhallywood-based associations along with prominent actors and directors formed a human chain to demonstrate their protests against foreign films releases in the country. The protesters alleged that the government (of Bangladesh) has set the process of letting out the local film business to the Indian side of cine makers and distributors.
Prominent Dhallywood actors participated in the protests among others and a press conference was held at the Directors’ Association office premises following the human chain. Actors shared their fears and expressed that the Bangladeshi film industry is now at a turning point as many good films are being made and thus the release of Bollywood films will destroy the industry. The country’s culture and language are at stake as children speak more Hindi than Bangla nowadays because they watch a lot of Hindi programmes on TV according to artists. The reports further clarified that under these circumstances, import of Hindi films will definitely prove to be destructive to our cultural heritage. Noted actors said that the artistes, directors and technicians of Dhallywood will go on a strike for indefinite period if Bombay Hindi films get released in the country.
Before we go deep into how obviously damaging Bollywood films will be for our movie industry, we must assess our current situation. There are not many movie theatres in the country that are within easy reach and in acceptable conditions with great film projections and sound systems as it is. The minimum infrastructure and untrained movie-making professionals leads to the least variety of quality local films. Only recently some theatres have improved their infrastructure and some quality movies are being made and thus a small section of movie-goers have decided to go to theatres to watch Dhallywood films. The addition of the Bollywood market will merely add to the issue by increasing Hindi movie domination and cause an unfortunate cultural aggression where people will be more inclined to watch or be influenced by Bollywood films. Some have suggested that a handful of Bollywood films could be shown under the government’s control yearly, but this again is a big gamble as Bollywood film penetration might just kill the weak local industry.
We hope the government sees sense and decides not to cripple the already struggling Bangladesh film industry and instead takes steps to encourage local film production. We must not make our language, culture and the cine-market a domain of the Indian Business hegemony.
