Balki concerned about state of affairs in film industry

Kolkata: Voicing concern over the state of affairs in the film industry, eminent director R Balki has said there is a subconscious feeling in most filmmakers that the industry is in "danger".

Addressing the annual 'Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture' at the 30th Kolkata International Film Festival here, Balki on Friday said barring few exceptions the "footfalls in theatres are decreasing."

"There is the subconscious feeling among most filmmakers that the film industry is in danger. Everything has been corrupted and footfalls in theatre decreasing. Maybe 4-5 films are making money among the lot. That is not doing much or helping much to improve the situation," he said.

"We never faced a situation like this earlier.....without cinema, I have no purpose in life. But when cinema itself is struggling, it becomes hard to keep things going," the maker of films like Cheeni Kum, Paa and Padman said.

Balki, also an ad filmmaker, recalled films of the 70s like Sholay or even Kuch Kuch Hota Hai made 20 years back. "We don't make such entertainers any more," he said, adding in recent times Bahubali was the last blockbuster so far as he is concerned.

Barring a few good ones, "many of the rest are garbage," he said.

"A lot of garbage is being watched, A lot of beautiful films are not being watched," he said.

Stating maestros like Ray would recreate magic on screen in a different era, Balki said "I wonder what Ray would have said today. Ray and other doyens, they were the masters of cinema." He felt there should be honesty in telling a story and its execution and not resorting to gimmickry and spending a disproportionate amount of money for doing promotion and other related things in the name of attracting audiences to the single screens and multiplexes.

Cinema is commerce. It is a product like soap and toothpaste, he said.

Balki said in their desperation to make money makers of most productions are not bothered about what kind of films the audiences are getting.

He called for a ceiling or regulation on the production budget of a film. If someone has to shell out a high amount for ticket of a movie, he/she has to like the product. Actually, in most of the films the response is not as organic or spontaneous as made out to be, he said.

"The Tamil film industry had devised a rule sometimes back you cannot exceed the budget in making a film. The thumb rule is to reduce the cost. When someone has watched a not-so-good film since you already paid Rs 300, your thinking will be if I don't like I will say I loved the film even if I couldn't like it that much," he quipped.

Even in OTT and reels, quantity has taken over quality as "we are having surplus content," he said.

"We talk a lot about climate change. We must also give a thought about improving the climate of cinema," he said.

Coming to AI, he said "In 4-5 years we have AI coming in. You look up to cinema. AI is not just a tool. I foresee AI will adapt to us and take over everything." "Tomorrow you have to categorise cinema between manmade and machine-made," he prophesied.