Key Points
Gangs of WasseypurdirectorAnurag Kashyapscommentthat Bengali cinema has become ghatiya,or trashy, has angered not just Tollywood but a big section of Kolkatas talk circuit.But rather than fuming over Kashyaps criticism,whohimself hasnt fully recovered from his 2015disasterBombay Velvet,the industry should focus onthe real crisis:the shrinking market space for Bengali cinema...
Every time amasala blockbuster likeSandeep Reddy VangasAnimalor Atlee KumarsJawanrakes in astronomical worldwide box office collections(Rs 917.82 croreandRs 1,148.32 crorerespectively),West Bengals filmmakers, consumers, and critics snigger.They.
His dismissal of an industry that prides itselfas acultural fountnot only forWest Bengal butalso forBengalispeakersin Bangladeshand the global diasporahit hard,especially the wordghatiya.Kashyapbecame persona non grata overnight, butinstead of self-reflection,a wave ofself-loathing followed, with panel discussionsdissectingthe downfall of Bengali cinema...
Once known asBengals matinee idol, Chatterjee shifted gear to do middle-of-the-road cinemaneither arthouse nor purely commercialfirst with Rituparno Ghosh and then with Srijit Mukherji, among others.Hecarefully managed to craft a new image by playing the leadin such films, gradually weaning away from masala cinema...
No wonder an outsider comes in and slams us today, he said.. Film critic and journalist Bhaswati Ghosh, in a 2 February report forEi Somoy,compared the commercial performanceof TollywoodwithBollywood and other regional industries.Ghosh cited data indicating that whileBollywoodearnedRs 5,380 crore in 2023, followed bytheTelugu(Rs 2,268 crore), Tamil(Rs 1,961 crore), and Malayalam(Rs 572 crore) filmindustries, Tollywood could not evenreachRs 100 crore in the whole year...
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