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Rajasthani cinema moves fast in search of a national identity

By Radheshyam Tewari | PUBLISHED: 10, Mar 2014, 13:21 pm IST | UPDATED: 19, Aug 2015, 18:37 pm IST

Rajasthani cinema moves fast  in search of a national identity With release of two films 'Hukum' and 'Tandav' in  the month of march 2014,  Mr, Lakhvinder Singh became the first Rajasthani film director of the state.His two films 'Gurger and Meena' and 'Bhawari'  released  during last couple of years back  successfully shown in the many cinema houses of the state . His films are the It’s a miraculous restart for an industry that has seen more highs and lows than a three-hour Bollywood blockbusters. Taking the storytelling lines from the Bollywood  pages,   making a film  in  such a language which is struggling to get its recognition even as a state language is a unprofitable proposition and that too in the age of  multiplex cinema where houses are booked for big casts and big movies.

It is quite admirable that new producers and distributors in the name of development and much-needed, nuanced portraits of their state   are pouring their money at great risk without any support from the any quarters of the government. For local film buffs the release of these two films in a month  is positive sign of good things to come,  for the first time in half a century . A film critic believes that 2014 will “go down in history as the year that cinema in Rajasthan was reborn.”

Interestingly  from the year 1961 when the first  full length film   Baba sa ro Ladli, a typical social film  made in a south Indian tear  jerker formula  continued to dominate the film scene of Rajasthani cinema for decades which was later dominated by  a group of religious film makers. For years film making in Rajasthani stayed on pause for want of  producers, ,financers and distributors  and weak political will  to declare Rajasthani as a state language. 

But since the last half a dozen years  a new wave  drew so many viewers to local cinema houses barring the  closed doors of multiplexes  to meet the regional demand. The  new era of  digital culture in turn, gave a new generation  which is  either trained in Bollywood or already working in television and advertising, ready  to start making movies of their own for their own local films like Bhojpuri, Bangla and other south Indian films  small tiny budgets. Even another film Bhobhar released a couple of years back by the another director Gajendra Shrotriya  was invited to some foreign film festival.