CROSS OVER CINEMA - What is it?

It has been a while since I sat down to write my thoughts. Various topics cross my mind. FICCI/Frames recently concluded its three day entertainment industry conference in Mumbai. There were big names on the panel (e.g. Karan Johar, Nandita Das, Javed Akhtar, Kamlesh Pande, Vidya Balan, Vijay Krishna Acharya, Siddtharth Roy Kapur, Vijay Singh to name a few) and lofty topics for discussion (e.g. Will Indian Film's Cross Over?, Relevance of Film Reviews to Box Office performance, Big Budget Flops - What ails the film industry, Future of entertainment in the next decade etcetra). Opening keynote address was by Shahrukh Khan, closing was by Ashok Amritraj. Political leaders like Ashok Chavan opened the conference and Ambika Soni closed it. Lots of eager delegates and wannabe film makers ran around from one venue to another getting an opportunity to meet and greet people like Yash Chopra and Ramesh Sippy. All very nice. But at the end of the day did I learn anything new?

I learnt that Shahrukh doesn't think there is any such thing as a cross-over film. There is comedy film, horror film, action film, romantic film but no such genre as cross-over film. Karan said flippantly once a film crosses it is over. In my opinion, cross-over is not a genre. If a film reaches an audience beyond its intended target audience as defined by the parameters of the film's setting, culture and language; it becomes a cross-over film. By that definition, Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali was a cross-over film in US, Raj Kapoor's Awara was a cross-over film in Russia, Rajnikant's Dancing Maharaja was a cross-over film in Japan, Mother India was a cross-over film in Peru. None of those film makers had designed their films to reach this unexpected audience. B.Subhash was himself surprised that Disco Dancer became a hit in Russia.

Most of the time when business seminars talk about cross-over cinema, they look at the possibility of increased market size by broadening the demographics. Degree of market penetration in non traditional market will determine added volume of business. Therefore, when a chinese film, Crouching Tiger does more than 100 million in US market or an italian film, Life is Beautiful wins an oscar and respectable US Box-office the trade calls them cross-over films. However, what is important to remember is that while making the film the film maker didn't try to make it audience friendly to an american audience by following norms of american cinema. As a matter of fact more deep rooted the film is to it's story's milieu and culture, more universal its appeal becomes. Iranian cinema, Spanish cinema, Brazilian cinema are examples of this. Their filmmakers tell their stories in their language and still find a niche audience outside of their traditional markets. My own experience of travelling to different film festivals with BAWANDAR which was mostly narrated in marwari language because of its story set in the backdrop of rural rajasthan is testimony to this. German women watching the film in Oslo were crying at the plight of a low caste women in Jhanjheu village. Many film producer's come to me to make a film set in India, in english language, so that it will have a cross-over appeal. As a matter of fact that will probably completely destroy its cross-over potential.