Global Indian Cinema

Indian producers first set foot in Malaysia when they discovered it as an economical destination to shoot song and dance sequences, rather than in the West. Thus, Malaysia transformed into one of Bollywood’s favorite shooting locations. At the turn of the new millennium, Indian films had captured the beautiful locales of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Langkawi, Genting Highlands and Sunway Lagoon to be viewed by millions of cinema lovers around the world. However, Malaysia's role and involvement with the Indian film industry is not restricted to location shoots. It has hosted the India International Film Awards in 2002 and 2015 and Global Indian Film Awards in 2006.

• Celebrated Indian director Subhash Ghai’s ‘Yaadein’ and the Shahrukh Khan starrer ‘One two Ka Four’ released in 2001.
• Abbas-Mustan’s ‘Humraaz’ and David Dhawan’s ‘Hum Kise Se Kam Nahin’ released in 2002.
• The romantic comedy ‘Dil Mange More’ arrived in cinemas in 2004, followed by Vikram Bhatt’s ‘Jurm’ in 2005.
• Aamir Khan stars in Fanaa, parts of Karan Johar’s ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’ and Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Don’ in 2006.
• The Amitabh Bachchan blockbuster ‘Paa’ in 2009 and Don 2 in 2011.
• This heightened exposure by the film industry augmented Malaysia's image as a popular tourist destination, showcasing the country's myriad natural and man-made attractions.
• Tamil actors from India such as Ajit Kumar is a local favorite, enjoying a huge fan base and Bollywood stars Hrithik Roshan and Shahrukh Khan become household names.
• The destination became popular not only with top filmmakers but television producers as well. Sony TV's 'Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin' was filmed in Malaysia between 2003 to 2006.

Links between India and New Zealand cinema date back to over a decade ago when New Zealand joined the queue to charm the world’s largest producer of films to its shores. Since then, this association has gone from strength to strength.

• After a spate of international films, explored NZ’s beautiful landscape, the first Indian film to be shot in New Zealand – ‘Sanam Harjai’, released in 1995.
• Since then, over 150 Indian films have filmed in New Zealand including three films by Vashu Baghnani: ‘Om Jai Jagdish’, ‘Deewanapan’ and ‘Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein’. Bollywood director Rakesh Roshan’s blockbuster ‘Kaho Na Pyar Hai’ was filmed in 2000 and launched the acting career of his son Hrithik Roshan directly resulting in the rise of Indian tourists from 400 in 1995 to 25,000 in 2001.
• New Zealand's New Delhi based South Asia Trade Commissioner, Peter Healy, said his government spent around NZ$ 2,481 to attract the Indian film's producers. In return this three-hour movie put New Zealand on the screens in front of over 300 million people, as well as paying thousands of dollars in wages and hiring costs to the New Zealand film industry.
• The success of the Bollywood Film ‘Players’this film and its stunning depiction of Kiwiland increased Indian visitation to New Zealand fivefold. The number of students’ visas issued in February 2000 went up to 70 (from 15 in December 1999) and tourist inflow rose from 600-700 visas/permits. Bollywood induced tourism has attracted Indian tourists not just from India but Canada, UK and USA who are drawn to the beautiful locales showcased in Bollywood films. Most notably ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, Wolverine, The Water Horse, 10,000 BC and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, that had already explored the beautiful landscape on celluloid, it was Bollywood’s turn to set eyes on Kiwi-land.
• The New Zealand hotel industry has been a witness to this phenomenon and attributes this sudden heightened interest to the ‘Hrithik Factor’. The figures themselves speak. A 2001 article in The Telegraph states that a year before Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai released, a mere 2,000 tourists visited New Zealand from India. But after ‘Hrithik mania struck’, the figure rose to 15,000! Also, from 900 students seeking Kiwi degrees in 2000, the number increased to 1,500 the following year.

Bollywood’s romance with Singapore began in 1960 when celebrated Indian director Shakti Samanta’s feature, flatteringly titled ‘Singapore’, and starring Bollywood superstar Shammi Kapoor, released in cinemas. Ever since, Singapore’s rich and diverse cityscape from Sentosa Island and Clarke Quay, Raffles Place to the East Coast, and Suntec City to Jurong Bird Park have captured the imagination of many of Bollywood’s stellar directors.

Several Bollywood directors also prefer Singapore over other overseas destinations because of its proximity to India and the easy availability of Indian cuisine. Thanks to the burgeoning ethnic Indian population, Indian directors visiting Singapore are spoilt for choice when it comes to catering to the dietary demands of the crew - a luxury they can ill-afford in Europe.

• Following the 1960s, Singapore saw little to no local Bollywood productions. But in 1997, Bollywood returned to Singapore with David Dhawan’s ‘Banarasi Babu’ and Rahul Rawail’s ‘Aur Pyar HoGaya’. Both these films opened up opportunities for collaborations with the local crew. Singapore based production coordinator Lyra Beins-Stewart worked on both films.
• The real turning point came in March 2004 when the Indian International Film Awards which honour both artistic and technical excellence of professionals in Bollywood, the Hindi language film industry, were held in Singapore.
• Celebrated Indian director Rakesh Roshan’s, 2003 blockbuster ‘Koi Mil Gaya’ won him Best Director and he was blown away by Singapore’s colour and spirit and decided to return to Singapore to shoot the sequel.
• ‘Krrish’ (the sequel to ‘Koi Mil Gay’a) was the first Indian film to be shot in Singapore under the Singapore Tourism Board's Film-in-Singapore subsidy scheme with more than 60% of the movie shot in the city.
• The next to arrive was India’s popular director Priyadarshan with his film ‘De Dana Dan’ starring two Indian superstars Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif, 70% of which was filmed in Singapore. He hired a 28-year-old Singaporean Indian- Abhilash Nair as the associate director on the film. After the success of this film, the director started production company Four Frames Pictures in Singapore.

Bollywood took advantage of the large South Asian population and a well-developed film infrastructure and a corresponding benefit were seen when major US studios financed Bollywood films for the Asian market. Since the 1990s, many Indian-produced films have been shot in "exotic" locations such as Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Niagara Falls, and Hamilton, Ontario.

• Since the 1990s, there has been an upsurge in Indian-produced films shot in such "exotic" locations. Srinivas Krishna's Toronto-shot ‘Masala’ (1991), a film about the 1985 Air Indian terrorist bombing, which uses many Bollywood tropes, was voted Best Film by non-resident Indians in a 2002 British Film Institute poll of South Asian cinema.
• Akshay Kumar, an action star of Indian cinema, has made three of his popular "Khiladi" movies in Canada: ‘Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi’ (1996), Mr and Mrs Khiladi (1997) and International Khiladi (1999), all filmed in Toronto.
• 'Bewafaa' (2005), filmed in Montreal, while ‘Humko Deewana Kar Gaye’ (2006) and 8 x 10 Tasveer (2009), shot in Calgary.
• Another Akshay Kumar film in 2011 was ‘Thank You’, made in Vancouver and Kumar was named as the brand ambassador for the Canada Tourism Commission in India in 2010.
• Deepa Mehta's ‘Bollywood/Hollywood’ (2002), also set in Toronto, is an exuberant romantic comedy deploying Bollywood's song-and-dance tradition combined with Hollywood's traditional insistence on a happy ending.
• In 2003, Canada signed a co-production agreement with India. This has led to an increasing number of Canadian/Indian co-productions.
• An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language film, ‘Heaven on Earth’ (2008), filmed in Brampton, Ontario.
• Canadian-born actors with Indian ancestry such as Lisa Ray, the star of ‘Bollywood/Hollywood’ and ‘Water’, havehas built a career in both countries. In recognition of the growing importance of Canada to Indian film producers, Toronto hosted the International Indian Film Academy Awards, aka the Bollywood Oscars, in 2011.

In spite of its current ubiquity, Bollywood had a humble beginning in the UK. Hindi film was virtually unheard of pre-1950. Nevertheless, Britain's fast financial development during the 1950’s supported a deluge of Indian families moving to the UK, especially to certain areas, for example, Southall and Hounslow in London.

Desperate to get their movie-fix in a largely Bollywood-less Britain, these newly formed Indian communities organised film evenings, where the latest Bollywood hits would be screened in houses and community centres using projectors. They didn’t quite know it yet, but Britain’s love affair with Bollywood had begun.

• In 1998, ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’, with its traditional songs, were a welcome change from the electronic-based sounds of previous 1980s films as it was the Indian Hindi - Language Romance Film with the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack albums of the 1980s with more than 8 million soundtrack albums sold.
• Veteran director Yash Chopra’s 1991 release Lamhe featured multiple British filming locations, including London, the Lake District and Norwich.
• Yash Chopra’s protégé Karan Johar carried on this trend of filming major Bollywood films in Britain, setting his 1998 hit ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ in London and Scotland. Brits loved seeing their own country in these films, with ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ becoming the first Bollywood film to debut in the top 10 at the UK box office.
• Britain’s love for Bollywood came full circle in 2012, when legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan was chosen to carry the Olympic torch through Southwark.

Links between Australia and India in the film industry date back to the 1930s, when a young Australian actress, Mary Evans, became the Indian film star known as “Fearless Nadia”. Evans swiftly became one of the first franchised characters in Indian cinematic history with a filmography crediting up to 40 films between 1925 to 1970. For the next thirty years, Australia largely failed to capitalise on the opportunities of bringing Indian productions to Australian shores. Finally, in the 1990s, things began to change, when leading actors, directors, and writers scripted Australia as a location in their upcoming feature films. Since then, more than 500 projects have materialised between the Indian and Australian film industries, ranging from feature films, TV series, music videos, TVCs (television commercials), seminars, and film festivals. Indian film crews are repeatedly drawn to not only working with Australia’s highly accomplished film professionals but the immensely beautiful and richly varied locations, coupled with our superb Australian weather.

• In late 2006 and early 2007 the biggest financial tie-ups between state governments and Bollywood films were made in Australia with ‘Love Story 2050’, ‘Heyy Babyy’ and ‘Victory’.
• Other notable films produced in Australia at the time include ‘Chak De! India’ and ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’.
• At the end of 2008, Australia became the backdrop for India’s reality show ‘Roadies 6.0’ and the broadcast hit record ratings for youth and music genre TV bringing in even more publicity for Australian locations.
• 2010 saw some major films shot in Australia including the Bollywood remake of Step Mom – ‘We Are Family’ (2010), ‘Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Salaam Namaste (2005), ‘Chak De India’ (2007), ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ (2008), Singh Is King (2008), From Sydney With Love (2012), Hindustani, Ramaiya Vastavaiya (2013), Bhaag milkha bhaag (2013) and many other films.
• ‘Shaadi Ke Side Effects’ (2014) (starring Farhan Akhtar and Vidya Balan) had a song “Tumse Pyar Ho Gaya” which filmed at the Gold Coast in Queensland, part of Australia which is famous for its white sandy beaches, world class theme parks, and the magnificent Hinterland.
• Many Australian crew, especially Directors and Directors of Photography in TVC and stunts, now work in India on Bollywood films.

The Lumiere brothers, the inventors of the cinematograph, started showing one to two-minute films for the Parisian public on November 28, 1895. Cinema was shown for the first time in India by the Lumiere brothers on July 17, 1896, at the Watson Hotel in Mumbai, eight months after their first show in Paris. Indian cinema has more than a hundred years of history, like the European or American film industry. Although the first show by the Lumiere brothers was just a series of visuals and moving scenes, it began an Indian love affair with the cinema form. inaugurated a long line of movies made by talented Indians. Hindi cinema's long-standing fascination with Europe goes decades back when showman Raj Kapoor took us to London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Vatican, and Switzerland, for his 1964 blockbuster 'Sangam.

• Fast forward to 1964, when the first Indian film was shot in Europe. ‘Sangam’ by Raj Kapoor, who is also known as ‘the greatest showman of Indian cinema’ incited cinema goers to queue up to see the foreign locales of Paris, Rome, Venice, Switzerland and the Vatican in motion pictures. This film started the trend of utilizing overseas backdrops for location shoots of song and dance sequences.
• Yash Chopra followed Raj Kapoor’s footsteps, and with time, the director unfurled his spectrum while upholding this connection to Europe, with movies like ‘Dil To Pagal Hai’ (1997), ‘Mujhse Dosti Karoge’ (2002), ‘Hum Tum’ (2004), ‘Fanaa’ (2006) and ‘Don 2’ (2011), to name a few, which unmasked the charm of Germany, Poland and Netherlands.
• Since then, countless movies by various directors have been shot at some of the most striking locations in Europe. Whether it is the Szechenyi Chain suspension bridge spanning the River Danube in Hungary in ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’ (1999), modern London streets in ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’ (2001) and ‘Cocktail’ (2012), Prague’s picturesque Old Town Square in ‘Rockstar’ (2011) or the dramatic landscape of Iceland in ‘Dilwale’ (2015), Bollywood experimented with every location possible.