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State gives Marathi films a leg up

The sons of the soil are at work. Seeing the disrepair into which the Marathi film industy has fallen, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government has announced a subsidy of Rs 1.5 million for every Marathi film produced. Also, theatre owners in the state do not have to pay tax on the Marathi films they screen.

Says Maharashtra Cultural Minister Pramod Navalkar, "The incentives are primarily in response to the sorry condition of Marathi cinema today. I hope our government's initiative will bring back the glory of Marathi cinema."

Without such help, the Marathi film industry, facing its worst crisis in its 75-year history, might just have curled up and died. Its output of about 30 films every year fell to just 10 films last year. This year, not more than five films are off the starting blocks.

Since early days, Marathi films have worked with lower budgets -- about Rs 3 million -- than comparable films in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam which work with a minimum of Rs 20 million to Rs 30 million. "Producers are compelled to double up as distributors as there are no takers for our films," says Vijay Kondke, who produced and directed the Marathi blockbuster of the century, Maherchi Saadi (left) in 1992.

Due to lack of work, many Marathi actors and actresses moved to Bollywood. Even if things change in the industry, it may be difficult to draw back Marathi stars who have shifted to Hindi films or television programmes. These include top draws like Varsha Usgaonkar, Ashwini Bhave, Laxmikant Berde, Ashok Saraf, Nishiganda Wad, Priya Tendulkar, Vikram Gokhale, Shriram Lagoo and many others. A television serial pays them about Rs 10,000 per day, far more than they would have earned working in Marathi films.

Says actor Ashok Saraf, "It is not that Marathi actors do not want to work for Marathi films. The problem is that there are not many films being made in Marathi. A person like me would always prefer a Marathi film over a Hindi film but when not enough films are made in Marathi, people like me are forced to shift to the small screen and Hindi cinema."

The Marathi film industry was felled by two factors, the advent of satellite television and the hike in prices of theatre tickets.

As more Marathi film buffs became television limpets after the advent of satellite channels, the then ruling Congress government in the state decided in 1994 to give every Marathi film producer Rs 1.6 million per film. There were some conditions attached though:

One, the producer would have to be at least three-fourth of the way through his next film. Two, if the film collected less than Rs 1.6 million, the producer would get only as much money as his film earned.

That, says director Mahesh Kothare, was a problem. "If the film collected only Rs 200,000, only that amount was paid to the producer by the state government. Now that the government has announced that they will pay Rs 1.5 million to all producers even if the film is flop," he says.

The other problem Marathi films faced was the rise in prices of theatre tickets. After the huge success of the Hindi film Hum Aap Ke Hai Kaun, theatre owners in the state hiked the price of tickets from between Rs 7 and Rs 10 to Rs 20 and Rs 25. This deterred the Marathi audience, most members of whom belonged to the lower middle classes.

According to Kondke (right), the urban lower income group has begun spending their small budget on Hindi films while the middle and elite classes have turned to English cinema.

As a result, in Bombay, the capital of Maharashtra, only two theatres, Kohinoor and Bharat Mata, screen Marathi films; in neighbouring Thane only Prabhat screens these flicks. Even in Pune, the capital of the Marathas, just one theatre out of 32 in the city regularly screens Marathi films. All the other theatres screen Marathi films at irregular intervals, especially since the number of films being made have reduced.

Additional reporting: Salil Murthy