Indian cinema is increasingly striking a chord with global audiences

Actor-producer Rituparna Sengupta discusses the global appeal of Indian cinema and her upcoming projects in diverse genres.

Indian cinema, irrespective of the region or language of making, has increasingly been striking a chord with global audiences, says actor-producer Rituparna Sengupta.

The actor, who was in Auroville recently for a preview screening of her upcoming release Goodbye Mountain at Cinema Paradiso, said many Indian films continue to be well received at prominent international film festivals.

The actor, whose national award for best actress in Rituparno Ghosh’s Dahan (1997) ranks as the crowning achievement among the several trophies of a long career, says that if one looked at Indian cinema as a totality of regional productions, there is no rationale for compartmentalising movies by geography or language.

“Cinema is global right now. I believe that when we are doing an Indian film, we are also creating a global platform where the language of its storytelling is no longer a limiting factor to how a viewer anywhere in the world identifies with it,” she said.

In fact, her own new Bengali release, Puratawn, whose aura was enhanced by the return to the screen of yesteryear star Sharmila Tagore after 14 years, had made waves at the Washington DC South Asian Film Festival recently, even bagging the Best Film award.

Rituparna and director Indrasis Acharya were back at Auroville’s Cinema Paradiso, where they had presented their previous collaboration, The Parcel (Bengali) a few years ago, was to showcase their latest to an international audience.

Auroville is a unique place where one gets to screen to a global audience, Rituparna noted, echoing the director’s remark about the screening being the film’s unofficial world premiere.