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| Friday, August 8, 2008 |
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Stuttgart is a small, well not very small, town in Germany, that is famous for having the Mercedes museum and for us in Bollywood for holding a film festival called Bollywood and Beyond. When I was invited there with Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic I accepted the invitation and decided to go visist Germany. Who wouldn’t accept an invitation like that, I’d always been fascinated by Germany and thought this is a good opportunity to visit Germany.
My hosts at The festival were really nice warm hearted people who did everything to ensure that my trip was comfortable and successful. This year at the festival they had more of beyond Bollywood than Bollywod, they only showed Jodha Akbar, Hum Tum and Thoda Pyaar ….. and then had films from all over India and the world (Indian filmmakers from different parts of the world). After the screening of our films we’d have a question-answer session with the audience. Jag Mundra was there with his latest film Shoot at Sight as was Shobha De, it was a ‘De’light to meet after so many years.
What really surprised me however was how much a German audience loves our films. I was in a dvd store when to my surprise I was Hindi films being sold there with their German titles! This means that many dvd’s are sold that it makes sense for them to make special German covers for them. Theatrically though Germany is a small market, but we really need to re-look that. Hindi Films are very popular on German TV and dvd’s. I came across a fan who was wearing a T-shirt with Nadira on it, when I asked her if she knew who Nadira was she started singing ‘mud mud ke na dekh mud mud ke’ !
They then had a Bollywood night at Budhha bar with Punjabi MC. A section of the german crowd came up to me and said this is Bhangra not Bollywood – point being they are so aware of Bollywood songs too – so they made Punjabi MC also sing some Bollywood hits. A street at the festival was done up with Indian food where,yet again they sold dvd’s of our films. The interesting part of this festival was that it was primarily attended to by a german audience, the NRI’s were there too, but it was 80% germans. A small but important start to getting our films to actually cross over.
The more festivals like this succeed, the better it will be for our films to have a wider reach with a world audience. We need to look at markets we haven’t developed like germany to develop and I’m sure festivals like Bollywood and Beyond will only help in doing that.
Check out exclusive pics from the Bollywood & Beyond Film Festival in Germany
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| Posted by Kunal Kohli at 11:50 IST |
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Last Post: 08/12/2008 |
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Kunal Kohli, the name is not just associated with good and hit cinema (Mujhse Dosti Karoge, Hum Tum, Fanaa and Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic) but is known as a film-maker with an opinion. A film-maker who was a film critic, one of the first and best judges on reality shows, a writer, thinker and of course a path breaking film-maker. Making a different film in each outing of his, Kunal is one of the leading film-makers in Bollywood today, his actors and he have won national awards and so many other awards. The music of his films is always a super hit and recently Kunal turned producer too and started his own production house Kunal Kohli productions. Bollywood Hungama brings you chance to interact with the charismatic filmmaker through his blog on BollywoodHungama.com. So don't miss this chance to read about Kunal's views on cinema and everything else under the sky, only on your favorite Bollywood website BollywoodHungama.com
You can visit Kunal's official website at http://www.kkp.co.in/ |
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