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
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.