India

On November 13, 1998, a film opened in India and played to almost full houses for about three weeks. On December 1, some 200 women belonging to a right-wing Hindu fundamentalist political party, the Shiv Sena, stormed a matinee screening of the film in Mumbai, vandalizing the theater and screaming slogans, shutting down the film.

Eeb Allay Ooo! is a political satire addressing the heavy political atmosphere in New Delhi, the capital of India. Director Prateek Vats’s daring and hilarious film exposes the political flaws of the system as seen through the innocent eyes of a young boy who is hired to get rid of the monkeys which populate the official governmental buildings.

One of the largest film industries in the world, the Indian film industry is in reality differentiated by regional languages. The city of Mumbai, the birthplace of “Bollywood” and Hindi language cinema is the most prominent in terms of box office size.

One in an occasional series exploring the state of Hollywood films in global markets. The fifth highest-grossing movie ever in the biggest film-producing country in the world is not a Bollywood film.

When one hears the name Bollywood, what comes to mind, most often than not, are three-hour-long movies with song and dance no matter what the genre, movies driven by star power such as Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar. These stars will still shine but they seem to be losing a little bit of their luster as is evident from the latest box office figures, all recent films starring the four actors have opened with good box office numbers and then have taken a nosedive.

The Indian Film Festival in Los Angeles (IFFLA, April 5-9 at LA Live) has become “a teenager with all the good and the bad” that teens come with, chuckled the founder Christina Marouda during her opening speech, on Wednesday night. For those who have visited the festival in the past, this year’s growth is evident: It has moved to the slick LA Live Cinemas downtown, boasting greater capacity, state-of-the-art screening quality, and a youthful crowd as colorful and eclectic as ever.

In a country addicted to 3-hour long movies that are mash-ups of every genre (musical numbers, bodice-ripping melodrama, action and chase scenes all in the same movie) with saintly mothers, perky heroines and suffering-while-singing heroes, the second biggest movie of last year was The Jungle Book.   It shattered every record by grossing $39 million.

Bajirao Mastani is an Indian film in the popular Bollywood genre of historical epic with a strong love story component. The lavishly staged picture was directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali who is also credited with composing the score for the film.

Mirzya is a pretty typical Bollywood production (director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, screenplay by Gulzar) based on popular Punjab folktale “Mirza Sahiba,” which is the story of two young lovers who are not allowed to be together by their families. If you did notice an obvious resemblance between “Mirza Sahiba” and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet you are absolutely right.

“This film is real life. A rollercoaster of reality.