When will Gujarati Cinema be Validated Globally?

Gujarati community is known for its global outlook, especially with its business acumen. The first Gujarati cinema was a short film Chvchav no Murabbo released on 4th January, 1931. Thankfully due to continuous efforts of Gujarati filmmakers the industry is going to complete 90 years in about a month from now. The industry gives close to 4 - 5 big hits every year. Majority of the films remain within the popular culture content, giving a very little or no room for experimentation. On one hand we have few universal narratives that surface after every few years, on the other hand we have modern content, which looks like any other Bollywood flicks. The question is whether Gujarati film industry can really achieve its Oscar, Berlin or Venice dream? 

At the outset let me confess, there are many reasons why Gujarati cinema can produce international successes compared to its other competition languages from India. Gujarati community is referred as a successful business community. Gujarat has 5% population of the country, but it contributes close to 7.3% of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The country itself has 55 million Gujarati speaking people, and about five million people are settled in other parts of the world. The language is month tongue of Mahatma Gandhi, the biggest personality of 20^th Century, and Narendra Modi, the current Indian prime minister. Besides there are many individuals from Arts, Science, Politics, Economics, History, Entertainment, Culture, Education, Pharma, Business and other fields who have Gujarati as their mother tongue.

So the million dollar question is why is it that Gujarati cinema has not been validated in these “A” list festivals and awards world over? The problem is deep. Let us start with the root cause. It is money. Seemingly the community is referred as a business community, and they should not have a problem with investments. Technically this is right. Gujaratis have a lot of money. But when it comes to investing in “Art”, it usually refers to tangible art forms. The acceptance of Cinema as a form of art is not widely recognized by a lot of investors. This could be the biggest problem for the industry. In the middle of this situation, there are some genuine investors, but without any evidence of possibility of consumption of Gujarati content, and probable estimate of revenue from ‘world class Gujarati cinema’, most of the investors shy away from investing. Most of the times, they would not have the correct budget in mind. Unfortunately even good narratives cannot make it because of the lack of basic requirements of a standard global narratives like sync sound, script consultants, festival representatives, color grading, VFX, global agents and list goes on. Yes it is a long list and a lot of Gujarati films do not meet the basic requirements.

There is another fundamental problem. Good film producers with a lot of potential end up choosing weak narratives because of the fear of failure. I must admit that I have had a good fortune to meet up with some amazing set of producers, who had faith in my vision, and wanted to back subjects which would be classified as “risky” propositions. But I guess I was able to win their trust. The question is, there are so many good filmmakers that I see around me, my contemporaries; but how many have made films they really believed in? Barring a handful of filmmakers not many, and that too with a lot of limitations. The problem is of a different nature here. Most of our narratives that are commissioned by the producers, are not aligned with what the world appreciates. There is a reasonably big gap between the ideal and desirable. This is also linked with the viewers of Gujarati cinema. Unlike a Bengali, Marathi or Malayali consumers of language cinema, Gujarati consumer likes a comparatively less thought provoking narrative. (I know this is a strong statement to make). You look at the number of films from the above languages doing rounds of global film festivals and you will know what I am trying to say. So the onus is also on to the viewers. But then the bigger question is, whose job is it to represent a voice? A Gujarati voice?

We need to accept that Cinema has a potential of recording the history of current times. The form attracts two sensory organs. Most importantly it has the magic of influencing people sitting in the dark room, waiting to accept a one way communication charged with emotions. Cinema also needs to be accepted as an art form. We need to inculcate new producers, as filmmakers, film viewers and people of Gujarat, with a safe recovery plan. This also could mean that if there is something good happening in Gujarati cinema, we make it go so viral that the investors recover their money. Cinema can do the magic, books did 100 years back. And the biggest way to make the global voice is by creating cinema about our subjects with all its checklists, in appropriate budget, appropriate narrative and sophisticated making so that it can represent the voice of Gujarat.

I see some fabulous filmmakers around me. Most of them have voiced it to me that they do not get enough money to create a good product. Why can’t we have the CSR budget of corporates as a service to society in form of a Gujarati Cinema Fund? Purely for the Gujarati avant-garde cinema??? Hoping that we will be able to do this. It is time to build the community, in a way that Gujarat can produce more and more wonders like cinema from other languages in India has. Last but not the least, there is also a need for a good film school in Gujarat. I have been in talks with more than one institutions, but honestly Cinema Education may not be a lucrative option for them, considering the initial investment we are looking at. Again, we need to have some investors look into this also.

Lastly, let me end by quoting an example as to why investing in world class art form is so important: In the 1920s the Nazi Party in Germany introduced a new term called “Degenerate art” which would refer to modern art. Under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, the works of world renowned artistes especially the German artistes were removed from the state owned museums, a lot of it was destroyed, the books were burnt…the result was that it changed a lot of artistes career. Many vibrant expressions of an era completely went missing. The country for few years almost went back to the oral tradition with almost no medium to express its emotions. The current dictator is the digitization. With so much crowd source content and so little time to contemplate on the world around us, if the artistes who can think deep, are not supported to think deep, it will probably not leave us with a trace of our rich and vibrant culture of current times. We need to work towards a Gujarati Avant-Garde cinema! May there be lights, camera and action!

 

Dr. Darshan Ashwin Trivedi

November 30, 2020